A cobra 4 axis board may be used to control hot wire, foam cutting machines. There exist several third parties software options to control such a machine, including, but not limited to: cenece.com, foamworks, mach3, emc2. And any other software outputting step and direction signals on printer port. These software rely on PC internal clocks for their timing.

Popular software for foam cutting are gmfc and jedicut. These ones need an external, hardware clock, on pin 10 of printer port, to correctly operate. This small board provides expantion of basic cobra functions, upgrading it with the timer needed by gfmc/jedicut.

A programmed PIC16F628A outputs 2kHz and 4kHz timer, putting this signal on pin 10 of printer port. You may freely choose desidered operating frequency via a jumper. You may also get rid of the timer function, and revert back to standard general input functions to pin 10, when you're not using it for gmfc.

Connecting this small board to cobra is really easy: just three wires go to GND, +5V and pin 10 connection posts.