Testing add on PCI PP, how do I know if it's working properly in test/demo mode?

I have (I think) settled on a Lenovo M92 machine for my CNC mill and it has no PP. I bought one from Amazon and have it installed correctly, I think, at least according to some info I found on the web, but how do I know if it's working, or will work without a BOB or a machine to connect to? I have yet to build my CNC machine and haven't picked any driver boards or BOBs etc.. I tried running LinuxCNC and it seems to run demo mode fine, no errors. Does that mean it works? I think I read somewhere that it would show errors if no PP is found. I didn't seem to need the driver CD that came with it, maybe that's just for windoze??

Any help in confirming it's working would be great.

thanks!

A good way to test if a parallel is functional, is to use the parallel port testing app that is included with Linuxcnc. In the Linuxcnc start menu under Apps, Parallel... Loading this configuration will copy a config called Parallel port to your /linuxcnc/configs/ dir. You will need to look up what your parallel port's address is. (If you don't know how to find that out please ask for help.) I'll assume you know what your port's address is. You will need to open the hal file for the parallel port test config, and edit it with a text editor and change the line that says
"loadrt hal_parport cfg="0x378 out" to match the address of your port. For example if your port's address is 0xe030, you'd change the line to be "loadrt hal_parport cfg="0xe030 out". Then save the hal file file.

Then open the parallel port test config in Linuxcnc. Use a short piece of wire (or if you want to be safe a 420ohm(ish) resistor) to jumper between an output pin and an input pin on the parallel port. Then when you press the test button for that pin in the window you should see the indicator for the pins you connected change. If they don't change then your port is either not working or you have the wrong address.

Thanks Todd,

Cool, yes address 0xe000 based on my install this morning. I just got home, spent most of the day playing Linux as we got rained out at work...went to town to find a few more PCs to play with but found nothing today.

I am slowly figuring out Linux and command lines and such.. for instance I was running latency test last night on a couple of Q4 machines and this morning decided to try a few others, dual core and pent 4, and the computers kept crashing after the first grub screen, both Deb and Wheezy...took a few minutes but realized I had isolcpus=0,1,2 which doesn't work too well on a dual core machine. I changed it to 1,2,3 and all is well again.

I found another really nice machine, my Mom's old PC from about 10 years ago, it was my shop computer. It's running latency test now with 5 GLXgears and a 4K video in Firefox, after 15 minutes of maneuvering around the windows it's still only 12.5uS @ .1sdev @ 50uS base thread, and  7uS max and .3uS sdev for the servo T @ 1000uS. I'm running Wheezy 2.7.14  3.4-9-rtai-686-pae updated to 2.8.2 so I can't run the scripted LT.

Going to try the PPort test now.

Cheers

Well I tried for a half hour but can't find the test program parallel port under Linuxcnc app menu. I only see demo app menu and there are only the 2 onboard Pport addresses listed, 0x378 and 0x278, there are no PCI ports indicated and my MB has no onboard Pports, just the PCI Pport.

I know I should be able to figure this out, I just can't right this minute.

Help please>

Thanks

Shoot, the 2 sample configs just start the port test when I open them, they don't open a config file or ask to copy contents.

ARG!

Could I just create the hal file from scratch or is there more to it than the one line?

cheers

Thanks Tommy, that opens up the port tester but it doesn't toggle anything...I'll try testing in a machine with built in PP so I know what it looks like when it works. Thanks for the help...coming up to dinner time, will continue later.

cheers

 

Yes I did that already, named it parallel.hal and it's in configs. I'll give it another try tonight after work.

Thanks again.

cheers