Mesa 7i96 Ethernet board

just to be safe is not good enough explanation for creating potential ground loop
on UHU negative and positive inputs present because of the optocoupler anode and cathode are available to connect.
since power grounds of UHU and 7i96 are connected in power supply i'm afraid that the only one correct connection here is to use positive terminals with grounding negative ones.
just would like to verify it.

and yes, this kind of cable i'm thinking about.

I found this schematic. Maybe you can figure it out. I can only read English. It looks to me like you connect to step + and Dir + and connect all the grounds.
www.uhu-servo.de/servo_en/UHU_Servo_Controller_300_en.pdf

If your drive has differential inputs, you use both + and - STEP and DIR outputs
If you have single ended inputs you use ground and + outputs OR +5V and - outputs
depending on the input type

You _never_ ground the + or - STEP/DIR outputs

Clear, thank you!

wasn't sure about mesa side. so in fact there are 3 methods to connect 7i96 to UHU.
is differential connection better then for example positive only and how?

connected as suggested.
today finished connecting and configuring home/limit switches.
next is UHUs basic setup and connecting them to mesa and linuxcnc
slowly but still moving forward

finally i get that working
Mesa wasn't so complicated at least for that simple setup i need for now.
more play with servo tuning.
Thank you all, guys for supporting me in this.



this is not the end, just a beginning of discovery of Mesa 7i96

I went on vacation to see my grandkids and took my board and computer with me to have my son help me thru this. He's does code for a living. Anyway, he couldn't get this to work either. We flashed the board and ran your files with no luck. I'm back home and just tried it again. Below is text from my terminal. Can you see anything I'm doing wrong? Also once I get this figured out would it be possible to put the same commands in a M101 M102 command to use in a g-code file?


stever@debian-LP:~/linuxcnc/raw write$ sudo mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr 10.10.10.10 --write 7i96d.bit
Checking file... OK
File type: BIT file
Boot sector OK
EEPROM sectors to write: 6, max sectors in area: 16
Erasing EEPROM sectors starting from 0x100000...
|EEEEEE
Programming EEPROM sectors starting from 0x100000...
|WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Board configuration updated successfully.
Checking file... OK
File type: BIT file
Boot sector OK
Verifying EEPROM sectors starting from 0x100000...
|VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Board configuration verified successfully.

You must power cycle the hardware or use the --reload command to load a new firmware.
stever@debian-LP:~/linuxcnc/raw write$ mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr 10.10.10.10 --readhmid
Configuration Name: HOSTMOT2

General configuration information:

BoardName : MESA7I96
FPGA Size: 9 KGates
FPGA Pins: 144
Number of IO Ports: 3
Width of one I/O port: 17
Clock Low frequency: 100.0000 MHz
Clock High frequency: 200.0000 MHz
IDROM Type: 3
Instance Stride 0: 4
Instance Stride 1: 64
Register Stride 0: 256
Register Stride 1: 256

Modules in configuration:

Module: DPLL
There are 1 of DPLL in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 7
BaseAddress: 7000
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: WatchDog
There are 1 of WatchDog in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 3
BaseAddress: 0C00
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: IOPort
There are 3 of IOPort in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 5
BaseAddress: 1000
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: StepGen
There are 5 of StepGen in configuration
Version: 2
Registers: 10
BaseAddress: 2000
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: QCount
There are 1 of QCount in configuration
Version: 2
Registers: 5
BaseAddress: 3000
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: SSerial
There are 1 of SSerial in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 6
BaseAddress: 5B00
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 64 bytes

Module: Transformer
There are 1 of Transformer in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 2
BaseAddress: 7D00
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Module: LED
There are 1 of LED in configuration
Version: 0
Registers: 1
BaseAddress: 0200
ClockFrequency: 100.000 MHz
Register Stride: 256 bytes
Instance Stride: 4 bytes

Configuration pin-out:

IO Connections for P1
Pin# I/O Pri. func Sec. func Chan Pin func Pin Dir

1 0 IOPort None
14 1 IOPort None
2 2 IOPort None
15 3 IOPort None
3 4 IOPort None
16 5 IOPort None
4 6 IOPort None
17 7 IOPort None
5 8 IOPort None
6 9 IOPort None
7 10 IOPort None
8 11 IOPort Transformer 0 Drive (Out)
9 12 IOPort Transformer 0 Ref (Out)
10 13 IOPort Transformer 0 Null3 (Out)
11 14 IOPort Transformer 0 Null4 (Out)
12 15 IOPort Transformer 0 Null5 (Out)
13 16 IOPort Transformer 0 Null6 (Out)

IO Connections for TB1
Pin# I/O Pri. func Sec. func Chan Pin func Pin Dir

1 17 IOPort StepGen 0 Step/Table1 (Out)
14 18 IOPort StepGen 0 Dir/Table2 (Out)
2 19 IOPort StepGen 1 Step/Table1 (Out)
15 20 IOPort StepGen 1 Dir/Table2 (Out)
3 21 IOPort StepGen 2 Step/Table1 (Out)
16 22 IOPort StepGen 2 Dir/Table2 (Out)
4 23 IOPort StepGen 3 Step/Table1 (Out)
17 24 IOPort StepGen 3 Dir/Table2 (Out)
5 25 IOPort StepGen 4 Step/Table1 (Out)
6 26 IOPort StepGen 4 Dir/Table2 (Out)
7 27 IOPort QCount 0 Quad-A (In)
8 28 IOPort QCount 0 Quad-B (In)
9 29 IOPort QCount 0 Quad-IDX (In)
10 30 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData1 (In)
11 31 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData1 (Out)
12 32 IOPort SSerial 0 TXEn1 (Out)
Segmentation fault
stever@debian-LP:~/linuxcnc/raw write$ ./7i96setup
stever@debian-LP:~/linuxcnc/raw write$ ./7i96all
stever@debian-LP:~/linuxcnc/raw write$

Not sure why you would re-flash the 7I96
but what actual issue do you have?

As per your instructions above to get the outputs to work;


I just verified that it works here using these example scripts:

freeby.mesanet.com/7i96.zip

Remove your output setup hal commands from your HAL file and run the scripts in the zip file:
(first launch LinuxCNC)

./7i96setup (setup need only be done once per LinuxCNC session)

./7i96all (turn all outputs on)

./7i96none (turn all outputs off)

you may need to make the scripts executable with
chmod +x 7i96setup
chmod +x 7i96all
chmod +x 7i96none

If this does not work, you may need to update your firmware

I have included a current 7I96 bitfile