Help needed to get my 7i76E + 7i85S + 7i73 on my mill going.

tecno wrote:

As regards board #2 for the milling machine I need 5 encoder inputs = X/Y/Z/A and Spindle.
So my question is can the spindle encoder be connected to other inputs so I can get this machine ready?

You probably have some "spare" encoder counters on the expansion connectors of the 7i76E. Do you know what firmware is on the board?

At the moment those are unprotected FPGA pins, so wiring direct might be unwise (especially with your experience so far).

You can't use the existing terminal block IO on the 7i76, as that is either dedicated outputs (step/dir pins) or smart-serial addressed and only updated at 1mS rate (GPIO pins).

Looking at the VHD file for that bitfile (attached) it should have three encoders.

All these encoders are multiplexed, so two sets of HAL pins per FPGA pin triple.
but I think that the 7i76 onboard terminals only use one of that pair.

Rather importantly, the encoder on the 7i76 is muxed encoder 02. I think that would be hm2_7i76e.0.encoder.04... in HAL.
Is that the one that you have been looking at in HAL?

Encoder pairs 00 and 01 are on the P1 expansion connector.

All these encoders are multiplexed, but I think that the 7i76 onboard terminals only use one of that pair.

If you enable _all_ the encoders and watch _all_ the outputs then it is just possible that you might find that things are OK.

num_encoders=1 will (as far as I can tell) disable the encoders on the 7i76E board.
Completely remove the num_encoders=N line from the hostmot2 config and then see if any of the encoders count when you move the spindle.

(this time I will attach the VHD file)

All the encoder.00 references in your spindle HAL probably need to be encoder.04

I say "probably" because I don't have your system to experiment with.

You don't need the "firmware=...." stuff in the Hostmot2 config string either.