Ditching Mach 3/4 LinuxCNC is The Plan!

racedirector wrote: I am currently trying to get my PMDX126 working in Extended I/IO mode to give me 8 inputs and more outputs. Steve Stallings of PMDX gave me a hal file that decodes the signals on pins 11,12,13 &15 and splits them into 8 inputs. Haven't got it to work yet due to my limited knowledge of hal and its connections but am hopeful of one day getting it working. If I do I will post the info.

I imagie it does this by using three pins as an "address" and one pin as a value for that "address"?

Got the PC booted, Had to re-flash my Samsung SA-350 Monitor ran the live disk seems like it runs! Will try and install it on the hard disk before i get to involved. Off to the surplus junk store to see if they have a DB25 cable and possibly a 2nd LPT card.

Well bummer.. when trying to install on hard drive from DVD drive!

First Error:
Apt configuration problem. An attempt to configure apt to install additional packages from the CD failed

Second Error:
The 'grub-pc' package failed to install into /target/ Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot.

Will wait for the kid to get home he is versed in linux.

Solved, If you have 2 DVD Drives Use DVD Drive #1 Not DVD Drive #2 to do the install.

Latency Test after a 1/2 hour of my son playing hard max jitter was 159,657ns so maybe not good enough for using the LPT port?

"If the numbers are 100 us or more (100,000 nanoseconds), then the PC is not a good candidate for software stepping."

Latency Test after a 1/2 hour of my son playing hard max jitter was 159,657ns so maybe not good enough for using the LPT port?

Did you make sure to disable all power saving features in BIOS?

If those are the numbers it probably isn't a good candidate for Linuxcnc at all. But have you properly configured it?

You need to be sure to turn off most if not all power saving features in the bios, as well as disabling any hyper-threading. If it is a multi core cpu, (most are anymore) it often will benefit from setting up isolcpus.

There are some tricks here
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?The_Is..._Parameter_And_GRUB2

Disabled Hyper threading and turned off fan management so for 99534ns

Unless it is the bottom Number.. then it is a lot better 51238ns


Not many power option in the bios.

Will let it run while I go to the surplus junk store!