7i90 questions

I've been pretty busy, will try and make a suitable bit file set today or tomorrow

freeby.mesanet.com/ssst8_6.zip

EPP and SPI 7I90 configs with 8x sserial (7I44 pinout) on P3
and 6 stepgens on P1 (P2 is GPIO only)

I managed to get lcnc to load on the rspi3, it was easier then I thought it would be, I installed synaptic and it installed 2.8 pre, which is a little different. Anyway. I installed the bit file for spi from above on the 7i90, from halcommand it loaded the hm2_rpspi and showed the pins.

halcmd: loadrt hm2_rpspi config="num_encoders=0 num_pwmgens=0 num_stepgens=1 sserial_port_0=002xxx"
Base:hm2_7i90.0hm2/hm2_7i90.0: Smart Serial Firmware Version 43
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: 72 I/O Pins used:
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 000 (P1-01): StepGen #0, pin Step (Output)
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 001 (P1-03): StepGen #0, pin Direction (Output)
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 002 (P1-05): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 003 (P1-07): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 004 (P1-09): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 005 (P1-11): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 006 (P1-13): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 007 (P1-15): IOPort
ect


When attempting to launch lcnc, I get a small hourglass on the screen for about 15 seconds then nothing, no errors, nada. Seems if it will work at the command line , it should load. What am I missing?

From the terminal i get the following:

(i/o pins not shown to save room)
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 071 (P3-47): IOPort
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: registered
Base:hm2_7i90.0

Missing <max linear speed> specifier
See the 'INI Configuration' documents

Shutting down and cleaning up LinuxCNC...
task: 182 cycles, min=0.000035, max=0.019557, avg=0.009321, 0 latency excursions (> 10x expected cycle time of 0.010000s)
hm2: unloading
Note: Using POSIX realtime
pi@raspberrypi:~ $

im apparently missing something in the .ini file?

Thats exactly what it was, added it and we now have a working rspi3 7i90-spi combo that appears to work.

Ok, for the last month or so I've been banging away at the rpi3/7i90 spi / 2.8 pre combo. Until yesterday,it was behaving, it now is not.... So maybe someone has some insight on some of these woes. When lcnc loads up , I get a hm2-7i90.0 base error. Usually I just clear it out and continue. I'm presently running two user written components , one controls estop and my operator panel ( buttons ect) , it puts out flags which are exported as out pins to another component that runs the machine. Until yesterday, it all worked, and well. Then....I got some sort of an 7i84 error( there is one in the system )and then no machine functions from the second component . Power down, works, sits for a 1/2 hour doesn't work . I thought maybe the pi was overheating, put a fan on it, works , power down, doesn't work . Second component loads it's hal pins and sometimes sets outputs, according to Hal show, but no action. Individuals bits can be set with sets and the out put is energized.

Problem 2 , I suspected a bad bit file on the 7i90 and managed to load the spi on both flash chips , duh. All attempts at loading the updated mesaflash from git, failed. Seems like I can load the bitfile thru spi from the pi with the latest version. Can some one tell me how to get this loaded on the pi running Jessie and pre 2.8

I'm beginning to think there is a problem with the pi3 , but I'm not ready to rule out driver or hardware issues, so any suggestions?

For what it is worth, I had a small stepper running at 500 inches a minute with this set up.

If it was working for a long time and suddenly got flakey, I would tend to suspect hardware
maybe power supply, noise in the SPI link, bad Raspi/7I90 etc


BTW FPGA configuration data cannot really go bad in subtle ways, if the
bitfile image is damaged, it will not load since the FPGA does a CRC check on the bitfile image as it loads
(you can of course load a incorrect bitfile with a good CRC and break things)

Well, the sd card literally smoked this morning, so I built a new image and was sure that was the problem, it wasn't . I tried a different pi3 , 7i90 and 7i84 with no success . I tend to believe the spi works, as it reads all inputs and bits can be set with sets and will make an output. I'll put my code up in the Hal forum, maybe Andy or Arceye will catch something, as they are good at it! Was Hal messed with in the latest version? Thanks for your input. Still don't under stand the base hm-2 -7i90.0 error at start up.