Mesa 5i20 servo configuration

Hello room,

To date I have been using EMC2 in a basic LPT port configuration provididng step and direction signals to external servo amp loops.

Very happy with my setup.

Am trying to setup a linear motor XY table. Would have gone with step and direction topology again but already have linear motors, glass scales and servo amps for the linear motors.

The servo amps call for +/- 10 V analogue control signal.

Can obtain interface cards to provide closed loop performance with step and direction inputs and and encoder inputs while providing +/- 10 v output for amps .

Would prefer to close the loop inside EMC2 rather than external hardware so that the DRO does not loose itself but actually shows true not inferred position.

So Mesa 5i20 looks like a likely candidate. whereby it would output a quasi analog value ( PWM "analogue").

Any users out there who have any horror stories about this approach?
Are the daughter boards simply low pass filters?
Any traps for the young monkeys when it comes to setting up servo amp PID parameters as well as software side PID parameters?

Any hand holding, without ulterior motives, welcome.

Zig

5I20 and 7I33 in the mail....

LOOK OUT WORLD..i am going to need some serious hand holding...Please?

Well the cards have arrived.

I installed the 5i20 and tried a sample config from the list of configs which come with EMC2. I went for the simplest stepper config.. no home no end of travel limits stepper configuration.

Axis splash comes on.. and an error console screen then tells me :''... firmware hm2/5i20/swvst8_4.bit not found..."
followed by a line about installing the package containing firmware or linking to a sandbox ( reminds me of my cat doing its thing in the sand box... not nice at allespecially if you are a little kid... and refferencing /lib/firmware manually.

sounds so linuxish,, what do i do...PLEASE?

You probably don't have the firmwares installed.
use synaptic package manager to install 'emc2-firmware'
Then try again.

Cmorley,

A kind word at the right time...

Thank You

John,

Thaks for the link.

I had seen the material previously under a related topic in which this link was posted along with several others.

Section 1.3 does talk about just what Cmorley recomended. It is that I did not connect existence of separate packages for the Mesa card as being outside the EMC install and having to separately install them.

I am looking at one of sample servo projects within EMC in the hope that "monkey see monkey do" may be possible in the case of this monkey.

In any case.... the project I am working on is based on old Normag brushles linear DC motors driven by equally old Motion Science ( ex San Jose )BLDC amps and some 0.0004" linear glass scales.

Will keep You informed ( if no other way then through screams of anguish and piles of hairs on the room floor)

GOOD NEWS

I designed a small break out card containing 50 pin header and some screw terminals along witha 5volt power supply and connected a glass scale to the 5I20 via the break out board and a 7i33 analogue interface card.

Started EMC2 using a simple sample 5I20 servo 3 axis configuration.

The card and the glass scales were recognised and the single axis to whihc the scales were assigned showed changes in the DRO reading.



BAD NEWS


I then decided to edit out the Y and Z axis from the INI and HAL files with the view to playing with a servo amp in a simpler environment. The servo work s on 110 AC full wavwe rectified and filterd supply.

The motor id=t drives is a shortish linear motor . both the length of axis and nature of the motor call for low power playground to get some familiarity. The Linear motor with the load attached will accelerate at up to a g ( 32 feet /s/s ) on a 2 foot track its .... whahappen???.. if anything screws up.
Hence the desire to set up a single axis INI and HAL files.

Well the files were edited.. and bad news

EMC2 would come up with errors. ( see attached error file )

I do not understand what is ment by:



[ 845.272325] rtapi: no version for "nano2count" found: kernel tainted

Any comments.. any advice welcome.. what is a tainted kernel?

I have also tried to see if the card is recognised ( see outcome of lspci in next message)

So as foreshadowed..Please help