7i77 board shutdown

I have problem with my 7i77 board randomly shutting down. This has started happening after I installed a stepper controlled fourth axis run off of the computer parallel port and had to install the base-thread. Before installing the base-thread did not have this problem. Machine can run fine for a while, but will randomly shut down the 7i77 board. Here is a screen pic of the error messages. This happens when Linuxcnc is up and the machine is just standing idle. Have not started cutting parts so do not know if it will happen when running a nc program. I think this may be do to large latency times, but not sure. . I have to reboot the system to clear and get linuxcnc to restart.

There were some revisions to the Mesa drivers that made the smart serial cards more sensitive to com errors, with the introduction of Linuxcnc 2.7. Updating the firmware on the cards usually solves the problem. This may or may not be affecting you. About how old are your cards?

I suspect this is some side effect of the base thread (has the watchdog bitten?)

Can you post you hal and ini files here and also post what OS/linuxcnc version you are using?

(if its a base thread latency issue a simple workaround would be to use stepgens in the 5I25 instead of the parallel
port since you would no longer need a base thread, this assumes you are not already using P2 on the 5I25)

1. The watchdog is bitten is false most of the time. I have not gotten the system to error out again, so I can not tell if the watchdog bit after the error messages occurred.

OS and realtime kernel are as follows: Linux mill01 3.18.13-rt10mah+ #3 SMP PREEMPT RT x86_64 GNU/Linux lmde2 Betsy mate -64 bit

I had to increase the base period in order to not error out at start of linuxcnc, so I would like get rid of base thread if possible. Running my A axis off of the 5i25 instead of the parallel port and getting rid of the base thread sounds good. The A axis rotary table is an old sherline rotary table that is currently run by a convertor box which plugs into the parallel port. If I change over to the 5i25, would I still use the convertor box and plug it into the P2 port on the 5i25, or would I be plugging the stepper motor directly into the p2 port.

You can use the 5I25 outputs directly to drive a step motor drive but you have to be careful with them
(if you accidentally connect them to any positive voltage >7 V or negative of < the -0.5V, you will damage the card

I would suggest using a low cost parallel port type breakout board to buffer the 5I25 outputs

Not sure but I think I already have the components I need. Now I am powering the 4th axis using a leftover sherline driver box shown here that is connected to the pc parallel port.
www.sherlinedirect.com/index.cfm?fuseact...ID=122248216&CFTOKEN


I have the right cable to connect this driver box to the p2 port on the 5i25. can this be done and run the dirver box from the p2 port and then get rid of the base thread as suggested.

Am also looking at ways to reduce the latency on my lmde2 and if I can do that I can keep the base -thread.