Another "what do I need" thread. Vmc retrofit

Good point about spindle orient, that is a useful thing to get in place first.

I wrote a wiki page on that subject:
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SpindleOrient

thewho wrote:

I'm not so sure about that as it has taken me like a year to learn basic Arduino programming

I taught myself C just to add three-phase motor support to the Mesa drivers, so not being very good at C right now is no handicap.

If I where to do the communication myself I'd probably use 4 pins (4bit binary) from the 7i77 card to select what tool is requested.
Example:
if tool == 12 then
set output 1 = 1
set output 2 = 1
set output 3 = 0
set output 4 = 0

No need for that, there is already an existing HAL component for the job:
www.linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/bitslice.9.html

Or to do it in C-code
output1 = tool & 1;
output2 = tool & 2;
output3 = tool & 4;
output4 = tool & 8;

No need for 12 if/else statements. "&" is bitwise-AND.

As promised, a half-baked attempt at a carousel control HAL component.

Attached should be a zip containing three files. Unzip them somewhere convenient then on that folder you can issue the following commands at the command line.
will show the documentation for the new component.will install the component so that you can use it.

To see it in action without hardware attached make sure Linuxcnc is _not_ running and:You should get a halshow watch window and a set of sim_pin buttons to pretend that you are the hardware
Put all the sim_pin boxes into "toggle" mode.
Then set a tool requetst in the pocket-number box.
Then set "enable" true.
You will see that the actuator-0 pin goes true, waiting for you to toggle actuator-1-fb. so do that, then the same for 1,2,3.
At than point you should see the gray-code pins flickering as the "simulated" carousel slowly moves.
It will stop at the right number, then you need to un-toggle the actuators 3,2,1,0 and the carousel state should return to the zero position.

Change the tool number, and repeat.

I actually think that this component can do nearly your whole sequence, except the Z moves. Your G-code might have to sit and wait for the actuator pins to do their thing, and it might well be the case that the feedback pins are driven from G-code outputs.

Early days yet, and rough around the edges.

thewho wrote:

Awesome!

I'll be trying it in a few hours, has to get off work first...
I'm planning on tuning all axis and get the spindle running this weekend.

And then we can start a debate on how it ought to work.

I think I want to change the config string from "u5" (in the case of your machine) to something like:

"pins=5 code=gray bidirectional=0 before=01234 after=345"

This would set pins 0,1,2,3,4 in sequence before moving the carousel and 3,4,5 in sequence after.

But this isn't as flexible as I would like. any ideas? Maybe "before=(1TW1F)(2F3TW1T)" as a format might work. That would set pin1-out "True" wait for pin1-fb to go "False" then set pin2 false, pin 3 true and wait for pin1-in to go "True" ?

OK, you can have a fiddle with that component, but be warned that Feature Creep has set in and I intend to change almost everything for extra fun and flexibility
(Though, actually, that version is probably perfectly capable of controlling your changer)

thewho wrote:

Sounds good!
I did what you said but it seems it didn't install the component.

What was the on-screen output when you did "sudo comp --install carousel.comp"?

It is possible that the missing component is sim_pin