Conversion from Richauto A18 to Mesa 7i76e

I have to edit every single picture to post here This forum only allows 1.6 MB files. I'm half tempted to put the RA controller back in and sell that stupid Mesa on ebay at this point.

take pictures with lower megapixels it will reduce the image size we dont need ultra resolution pictures to figure out what you need. 2 mega pixel is enough.
i got my mesa 7i76e this sunday and my machine is already working. motors and spindle. this forum helped me a lot the mods here answered every question i had very quickly they do care.

is it only the VFD that troubles you
or are the drives also a problem

You shoudt unplug all power to the Drives and start by adding one after the other
Starting X is always best
STEPGEN 0 on 7i76e pncconf DIR Step to Driver X and of we go
replugging is faster then reordering

I can't re-photograph it as I have already unhooked the stock Richauto controller, so to show how it was terminated, I have to re-size the existing pictures I have.
It's not just the VFD. I just have zero confidence in this project and I'm afraid of destroying my machine. I've been in IT for 20 years, use Linux as my main O/S at home, and I have a background in electronics as well, but I do not know CNC electronics specifically and so the Mesa manual is like Greek to me. There are absolutely no videos on youtube (in English) on hooking one of these things up. I would love to find the textbook for "CNC machining 101" just so I can get a big picture understanding of what is going on in these things, but I haven't found any yet.
I'm trying to replace the Richauto A18 controller that came installed on my CNC just so I can have more granular control. Oh and being able to set feeds/speeds would be nice too. the Richauto completely ignores whatever I set in Vcarve. I know these Richauto controllers are out there. Laguna machines use them, as I'm sure a lot of other Chinese built machines do. I would have thought someone out there had been through this before, but maybe not.
At this point though I'm thinking about aborting this project, reinstalling the RA, and work instead on tweaking my post processor so it works correctly. Then finding (or writing) one that works in FreeCAD. The Richauto controller sucks, but at least it functions.

At a glance, it looks pretty good but As Tommy said, I would do it one step at a time. When I built my machine with a 7i76e, I did something like:
1. Power to 7i76e and test
2. Add estop (you might need that)
3. Got steppers turning but not driving machine
4. Sorted out home and limit switches (the resistors for NPN sensors looks right)
5. Somewhere get the spindle working.

Back to the steppers, the Mesa stepgens have + and - connections for direction and pulse plus +5 and -5 volt power wires but it sounds like yours uses a common wire for one side of the pulse and direction (normally -). You might need to work out if they are active high or active low. I used active high .

Note the 7i76 prefers PNP prox sensors but I bought the wrong ones so the resistors will let you use them.

lets try it from the beginning.
unhook everything from the mesa board except 24v to power it.
does linux cnc recognize the board?(in terminal "mesaflash --device 7i76e --addr 10.10.10.10 --reahmid")
if it does make a basic configuration in pncconf.
also give us the model of the stepper driver or a manual so we can help you wire it up