Resurrecting mill with 7i43-7i37-7i64-7i73

A while back (probably 6 years ago) I retrofitted my mill with a bunch of mesa cards.

Over the winter a rodent managed to wreck my SSD. Fortunately, I had a backup of my ini/HAL files and the .bit file I built for my 7i43 (6 encoders, 2 pwmgens, 5 stepgens and an SSERIAL port)

I reinstalled with the latest iso, booted the system, and copied my files into the 7i42-4 directory.

Upon trying to startup my system, first error was related to the watchdog not appearing in my 7i43:

addf hm2_7i43.0.pet_watchdog servo-thread

Returned:

HAL: ERROR function 'hm2_7i43.0.pet_watchdog' not found


If I comment that out, I get an error that my 7i64 isn't seen:
./BOSSV.hal:64 Pin 'hm2_7i43.0.7i64.0.0.digin.03.in-not' does not exist

And my dmesg output, while generally displaying a configuration that looks similar to what I recall long ago, does have this bit of warning:

[ 7219.475235] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Warning: sserial remote device 7i73 channel 1 has old firmware that should be updated


I suspect most of my issues are related to using a newer version of linux CNC with my older HAL file, and syntax has changed. I'm a bit concerned that the 7i64 isn't appearing in the stack.

1) How do I update the firmware on the 7i73? Would old firmware on there keep my 7i64 from showing?
2) Is it possible for my to program my bit file (custom made with the xilinx tools from a while ago) into my 7i43?

I'm going to play with the sample configs in the interim and see if I can get to browsing the cards I have connected. I believe my connection is

PC -> Parallel port ---- 7i43

---

7i64

---

7i73
With another mesa 7i73?? (422 drivers) in there for good measure.

I think these are all LinuxCNC changes

1. The pet watchdog function was removed in 2.7 ( its been merged into the hardware read function )
2. 7I64 pin names changed a number of years ago to make them more like other sserial devices ( digin changed to input )
3. Normally 7I43 bitfiles are written to the 7I43 at LinuxCNC startup, the bitfile name is specified in the driver
config line ( and the bitfile must be installed in /lib/firmware/hm2/7i43/ )
4. There's a zipfile with updated sserial firmware here:

freeby.mesanet.com/software/parallel/sserial.tgz

Thanks! I think it all explains what I saw, I will give these a try tonight. The updated sserial FW makes sense too - I would occasionally have a glitch where the 7i73 wouldn't show up at init time, but I recall installing that and upgrading lcnc just as support appeared on a development branch, so I'm sure it's a lot further along now.

Thanks again!
murph

Thanks Peter!

With some HAL tweaking, I have the mill working about like the old one, with the added warning when AXIS starts about my out of date 7i37 firmware... Looks like I built my custom 7i43 bit file one version too early to adjust the baud rate (v33). I suspect to get the sserial flash utilities to run I will have to rebuild the bitfile, correct? My system has sserial on the 7i43 pins 11/13 (RX0/1) 20/21(TX0/TX1) and 37/38 (TXEN0/TXEN1). There are not any 'stock' bit files that have a sserial image in them are there?

Thanks again!

I think most 7I43 bitfiles are pretty crusty and old, I dont see any with sserial in the standard
distribution zip file but there are a few custom ones with sserial around, what size is your 7I43 ( -200 or -400 )?

Another option If you have your pinout source file, I'm setup to build bitfiles so could build one for you

I have my original .pin and .vhdl! (7i43-400)