5i25 with 7i77 HAL and wiring schematic for servo

Hello,
I am struggling trying to get LinuxCNC to run my three axis kneemill. It had a Heidenhain TNC145 controller that gave out. I thought LinuxCNC would be a bit more difficult that Mach3 but would give me more flexibility and reuse all the existing hardware. So far it has been an extemely steep learning curve having no experience with linux, command line stuff, or this HAL file language.

I purchased the 5i25/7i77 package from Mesa and am having difficulty figuring out a Hal file to make this run. I have only the one example 5i25/7i77 hal file that mesa provided on their "freeby" server but am missing the wiring schematic that the file would correspond to it. I am having trouble corolating the physical pin to the labels in the file.

If anyone has a 5i25/7i77 file they could share with a wiring schematic it would help me alot. My hardware is three Heidenhain (LS701) linear encoders run through EXE602D's so the output is in TTL quadrature, three Contraves NC400 servo drives requiring an analogue +/-10V and various pushbuttons. I have attached a schematic of how I wired the 7i77 incase someone has a HAL file that would correspond. I could also do with a file with just a few input/outputs so I could test a few buttons just to verify the board is talking the LinuxCNC.

Thanks alot,
Paul

As far as wiring, what you really need is a wiring schematic for the drives that you are using. There are a number of ways certain things can be done with the Mesa stuff, and what you need will be determined by what you have.

My on 5i25/7i77 setup the servo control had 3 wires for the analog input. A+, A-, and Gnd. A+ was connected to the Aout on the 7i77 (pin4 on your drawing), the A- and the Gnd wires both connected to the same pin on the 7i77 (Gnd pin3), and the servo enable (wich just works like a switch or relay) connected to my drive enable on the 7i77 pin 2 and 7i77 pin1 went to a Gnd on the drive.

It is all covered reletively well in the Mesa manuals.

As to configuring HAL I just used PNC config to set up my general setup then made the modifications I needed after (I had a lot of modifing to do since I set up a 4 axis XYZW setup) . It will do most of the HAL and INI setup for you.

PNC config is a little confusing at first, but READ EVERTHING you can find on the subject, then ask questions about what dosn't make sence to you.

Like for starters PNC won't work fully until you have the Mesa hardware installed in your computer and powered up (including the field power on the 7i77). But you don't need to have the machine wiring completed.

If you think it might help you I could post my config files for you. I would include both what PNC config spit out and what my machine run on. But I did not make a full wiring schematic, so I don't have one to show you.