7i95 sserial port as gpio

I decided to go with a buffered parallel port BOB to get more GPIO (Mesa 7i75 Breakout/FPGA protection card). But I also need a pwmgen to drive a Mesa SPINx1A for the VFD. I plans to use all 6 step/direction and encoder channels eventually, so I don't want to use one of those for VFD speed control if I don't have to. Leaving the sserial as is for future expansion.

So I need firmware which adds 1 pwngen to the P1.

Would 7i95t_5abobd.bin in the MesaCT do this? I assume it would make 5 pwmgen's available; and for those pins I want to use as I/O, I just declare them in HAL as GPIO. Is this correct?

Or do I need special firmware?

7i95t_5abobd.bin has 1 PWMgen and I think 4 or  or 5 additional stepgen channels

Its designed for the common "Sainsmart Mach 5 Axis breakout"
 

Do I need special firmware? Can you please make one for me?

No, 7i95t_5abobd.bin should work.

I flashed 7i95t_5abodd.bin, it succeeded. Then I hit reload, and now the card can't be found. I rebooted the card and restarted MesaCT, still can't find the board. Jumpers still in the same location, NIC settings the same. No red leds.

What to do now?

What is the card address and what does the command

ip a

report?

You can boot the fallback configuration by setting both IP address jumpers UP
(the will also set the card IP address to 192.168.1.121)