Running Multiple Engravers

 

Using the Long Board and the Short Board

The long APU boards and the short APU boards (with the exception of the PCI board), have interchangeable APU addresses.  With this feature, a single computer can run up to 4 engravers simply by changing the address on the board itself.  By default, the APU board address is 0x298.  Other valid APU addresses are:

To change the address on the APU board, use the diagrams below as a guide.  You will need to adjust the jumper on the APU board in order to change the address.

 

         

 

The IRQ setting for the APU boards can be the same

 

  1. Once the APU boards are set with the proper addresses, the software needs to know which APU board to output to.  

  2. Start the Xenetech software.

  3. Select Page | Engraving Table Defaults...

  4. Look at the lower right corner of the dialog and be sure that Engraver 1 is selected.

  5. On the right side of the dialog, set the APU Board address to the desired address.

 

 

  1. Now click on Engraver 2 in the lower right hand corner of the dialog.

  2. Set the APU board address to the next APU board address.

If you are using more than two APU boards, start another instance of Xenetech (you will have the software running twice), and set the other two APU board addresses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using the PCI Board

 

Setting up PCI boards to run multiple engravers is almost the same as mentioned above.  The difference in the installation of the PCI boards is that there is no APU board address or IRQ's to set.  The PCI board runs off of a driver that will be installed when the computer is turned on.

 

After the boards are installed and the computer is turned on, The Add New Hardware Wizard will find the PCI boards and will ask for the driver.  Follow the setup manual for installing the driver.  This will only needed to be done once even if multiple PCI cards were installed.  After the driver is installed, the computer will recognize the driver as the correct one for the other PCI cards and will install them automatically.

 

Once the computer is up and running, start Xenetech.   Select Page | Engraving Table Defaults...  you will notice that on the right side of the dialog it will say PCI card detected.  But which one?  When PCI slots are installed on the motherboard, they are in order....either from top down or from bottom up.  If you do not know how yours is set up then you will need to experiment to find out which slot is the first.  Either the top PCI slot will be slot number one or the bottom slot will be slot number one.  Once that is determined:

If you start another instance of Xenetech: