BeagleBone Black and PRU Driver for Linuxcnc? Or switch to RP-4 / Mesa?

At the time when I started the lathe project I considered Mesa but by reading the manuals I figured that I need at least two cards for the number of encoder inputs:
2 Glasscales
2 MPGs
1 Spindle Encoder

Plus the usual stuff on a lathe (Pwmgen for 2 Steppers, inputs for limit switches, PWM for Spindle Speed, some inputs for hardware buttons)

I got rid of the Glassscales meanwhile so it seems I can get away with a single 7i76. I just quickly checked the Remora and I don't think it would provide the number of inputs I need.

But I'm not on this route yet as I have not fully used the time set by my timebox of porting the code.

I did look at the code here: github.com/SebKuzminsky/hostmot2-firmware-beaglebone and believe this is an attempt to load FW to the PRUs via hostmod2. There are some hard coded valued in the main.c and my impression is that this was an attempt but is far away from the functionality provided by the machinekit driver (e.g. it seems to do only PWM out on hard coded PINs)

BR,
Malte

Your right, it's a great project, and big thanks to the devs, just in my case I need something better than the 20khz, I just built up a whole control and now need to find something else, like the H3. setting back my ship dates, im stuck in a position i cant wait even tho this has great future potential. I was hoping to ship with a SBC all included control system v.s. ext like Mach and acorn(ext PC) VS (internal RPI).

If you want to experiment with the PRU driver then I created a test branch of LinuxCNC with it included.

If you are building from source then just:

git checkout andypugh/bb_pru

And compile as usual.

I haven't tested it which is why it has not yet been merged with the LinuxCNC mainline. 

I found a BBB on a shelf. What's the easiest route to get an RT kernel on there?

Most of the time the easiest way is using machinekit image by robert nelson, he is still generating bbb images, but I think they have an issue with buster according to their git, so he hasnt made any for buster, just stretch
elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_D...l_Revs.29_Machinekit

I havent tried any iof the non machinekit images in a long time, so dont know for sure, but this one seems rt, or some of the ROS images appear to be rt kernels

elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_D...line_.285.4.x_lts.29


edit, also I think newer images come with the graphics driver installed, but they have to also be a TI kernel, so -ti -rt kernel image
here is some info on the graphics driver if you feel up to it, my hope is with the driver installed, axis wont be so bogged down by software generated graphics, but I have not completed the install with driver, as i ran into xrandr issues. here are some links about it
very.busted.systems/PowerVR-SGX-on-the-beaglebone-black-in-2019
elinux.org/BeagleBoneBlack/SGX_%2B_Qt_EG...ston#The_NEW_Version

MalteS wrote: I did look at the code here: github.com/SebKuzminsky/hostmot2-firmware-beaglebone and believe this is an attempt to load FW to the PRUs via hostmod2. There are some hard coded valued in the main.c and my impression is that this was an attempt but is far away from the functionality provided by the machinekit driver (e.g. it seems to do only PWM out on hard coded PINs)

ahh good to know

andypugh wrote:

If you want to experiment with the PRU driver then I created a test branch of LinuxCNC with it included.

If you are building from source then just:

git checkout andypugh/bb_pru

And compile as usual.

I haven't tested it which is why it has not yet been merged with the LinuxCNC mainline. 

ahh it was in a separate repo, this one looks like a machinekit port correct?