LinuxCNC-RIO - RealtimeIO for LinuxCNC based on FPGA (ICE40 / ECP5)

@meister

Do you happen to have LinuxCNC-RIO ported for the Gowin IDE? I'd like to explore your awesome work however would be willing to do so in an environment that I'm semi-familiar with already (i.e. Gowin IDE).

If so can you link me to a branch or point me in the correct direction to get started please. That'd be super cool.

ps. Goal; retrofit a co2 laser (stepper 3ax, 1 rot, 3 limit switches). Hardware at hand; gowin littlebee serie fpga

Mecanix wrote:

@meister

Do you happen to have LinuxCNC-RIO ported for the Gowin IDE? I'd like to explore your awesome work however would be willing to do so in an environment that I'm semi-familiar with already (i.e. Gowin IDE).

Thanks, yes gowin toolchain is supported, it even generates a project file for the IDE.
However, it is easier (at least for me) to work without an IDE, so you are not so tied to one manufacturer.
Since everything is more or less generated here, an IDE is only suitable for troubleshooting and playing around

Mecanix wrote:

If so can you link me to a branch or point me in the correct direction to get started please. That'd be super cool.

ps. Goal; retrofit a co2 laser (stepper 3ax, 1 rot, 3 limit switches). Hardware at hand; gowin littlebee serie fpga
 

for new projects, the best branch is here: 
github.com/multigcs/riocore/tree/dev

littlebee is not yet directly supported, but if there is a GW1N-9 on it, it should be no problem to use the TangNano9k configs as a template

copy the file: riocore/boards/TangNano9K.json to riocore/boards/LittleBee.json and edit it (type/family/clock-pin/speed), set toolchain to gowin

than copy riocore/configs/TangNano9K/config-uart.json to riocore/configs/LittleBee/config-uart.json and edit it (boardcfg and the pins / you can also remove all plugins and leave only the uart and blink for first tests)

then you can generate the Gateware with:
clear ; PYTHONPATH=. bin/rio-generator riocore/configs/LittleBee/config-uart.json

if all works, you will find a project file for gowin-ide here: Output/LittleBee/Gateware/rio.gprj







 

I don't know what to say, that was too kind Meister. Thank you so much for taking the time.

I'm working off a GW1N-LV9QN88 part (custom dev board). Schematic and pcb mostly inspired from the infamous TangNano9K and so I have a good feeling this won't be too difficult to port hardware-wise.

Let me set-up, clone, learn your work during the coming days. As soon as I have a successful IDE compile/project I'll share it with you to upload on your repo.

So excited about this already. Thank you again. I'll update progress!

First contrib; Feel free to replicate/publish/flame/others. Great liltle working-but-simple fpga dev board.
Schematic attached. 

WOW image missing /media/kunena/emoticons/kissing.png very nice !!!
I recently tried to build a board with an ICE40UP5K, but I'm somehow too stupid to get it to work The FPGA chips are just too small for me to solder them by hand.

It would be cool to have a complete rio board without having to use a plug-on devboard .

I just saw that you use Windows, rio unfortunately only runs under linux, vm is also ok, if it works in WSL I can't say unfortunately

 

The EDA I'm forced to use at work is win11 based. I know I know...

However my entire dev environment aka compilers, IDEs, ect, are all Debian/linux based. No substitute

If you aren't friend with fine pitch then avoid the LV9QN88 part. Not much better than the ICE40UP5K to say the least. I'm with you though, prefer their LQFP pinouts...