[Robotgroup] USB to LPTx legacy cable for laptops with USBonlyneeded

[Andre Lamothe]

Yes, I saw that, its more of a complete CNC interface though, $250.

Andre'

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Atkinson" <pmatkinson at gmail.com>
To: "The Robot Group Mailing List" <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] USB to LPTx legacy cable for laptops with 
USBonlyneeded


Another long shot - There is something called a USB-CNC controller.
Apparently folks who no longer have a parallel port on their new-ish
computers are using these things to make their CNC machine work. A lot of
CNC home-brews want to use a parallel port in bit bang mode. I don't know
what the state of the art is in drivers for them, but there must be some
support.

Paul

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 6:04 PM, Andre Lamothe <ceo at nurve.net> wrote:

> Right, this is the problem. I don't want to do any engineering, you are
> looking at 100-200 hours of driver development, etc. that's a lot of work
> for the ROI. Basically, you would cause a $15-30K engineering fee, just so
> a
> few customers can buy a USB to parallel converter. So it's got to be
> something off the shelf. They are available for PCMCIA and plug in PCI,
> but
> USB to parallel cables seem to not have real "parallel" port capability. I
> did find one nutcase in germany that spent 4 years building the cable,
> writing the drivers, etc., but he has none for sale. I am going to see how
> many customers need them, and if its a potential ROI then I will just copy
> his design (its opensource) and use his drivers, software, but I wish I
> could find something from a reputable company that I can just buy in a
> nice
> retail package.
>
> Andre'
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Atkinson" <pmatkinson at gmail.com>
> To: "The Robot Group Mailing List" <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 5:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] USB to LPTx legacy cable for laptops with USB
> onlyneeded
>
>
> Andre',
>
> I was looking at a Prop-stick and wondered if it could be programmed to
> act
> like the USB to P-port cable you were looking for? I figure you probably
> know more about the propeller than anyone I know. What do you think? I'm
> guessing the host driver would be a pain...
>
> Paul
>
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 2:02 AM, Andre Lamothe <ceo at nurve.net> wrote:
>
> > Correct. Has to support low level parallel port I/O. So I can write to
> > ports
> > 0x378... or rather my tools that support the parallel port can.
> >
> > And its not just the chip, but their needs to be a driver that makes the
> > port seem as an LPTx port as well at the kernel level.
> >
> > Andre'
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "TomD" <TomD at hyperweb.com>
> > To: "The Robot Group Mailing List" <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:39 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] USB to LPTx legacy cable for laptops with USB
> > only
> > needed
> >
> >
> > so, you just need a cable that uses the PL2305 or FT245 , I get a lot of
> > hits with those chips.
> > Also for some reason PL2503 gets hits for parallel cables.
> >
> >  You do not want ones that explicitly say 'Important Technical
> > Information:
> > THIS DEVICE IS TO BE USED ONLY WITH PRINTERS, NO OTHER PARALLEL DEVICES
> > WILL
> > WORK. NOT EVEN MULTI-FUNCTION DEVICES'
> >
> > but then you've already found out that part.
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