can not connect to Mesa 7i76E anymore

Hi,

I bought a Mesa 7i76E card for a plasma cutter three month ago, and managed to set it up for a plasma cutter. Everything worked fine until today.

When the pilot arc fired, the machine stopped and linuxcnc said "joint 0 error". Since then I was not able to move the machine in any direction any more - the connection between pc and mesa card is broken.

I power-cycled the whole setup a few times, but I am not able to connect with the mesa card anymore. Linuxcnc says "hm2_eth: ERROR: 10.10.10.10: Could not retrieve mac address" and does not start.
Pinging 10.10.10.10 also fails (no answere), but the green led on the RJ45 connector on the mesa card flashes at every ping request.
I also tried to set the boot jumper (W9) to the DOWN position to start from the secondary flash, but this did not change anything.

I also connected the mesa card to a notebook which worked fine with the card a few days ago. Now I get there the same error "hm2_eth: ERROR: 10.10.10.10: Could not retrieve mac address" at linuxcnc startup, therefore I think it is not a pc or network configuration problem.

How can I fix this? Do I have to re-flash the firmware?

Best,

Christoph

It sounds like something in the Ethernet path was damaged.
If the firmware loads (/done LED not illuminated after power up),
reloading the firmware will not make any difference

Damage to Ethernet link hardware suggests a grounding/shielding issue

Note that the damage could be at the 7I76E, the controlling PCs Ethernet port
or both

That is always caused by miss wiring or grounding and shielding not properly done.
First you have to fix the machine, namely the wiring and grounding, check and recheck everything several times, use shielded wires for all signalling, make sure the socket you are using has proper grounding, shields from cables connected only on one side - the signalling side, no cable loops, never, no long cables going parallel with the torch or the ground cable from the plasma source, keyboard and mouse of a good brand ( cheap ones do not have shielding), table grounded properly.
Also the network cable as short as possible, the shielded ones are very expensive.

Ok, thanks, I will try to improve shielding and grounding.

I think the problem is the Mesa Card, I already replaced the PC but it changed nothing...

The /done led is not illuminated.

Do you think the Mesa Card can be repaired?

If you do not fix the issues first, you will have more damaged equipment.
The Mesa card problem was caused by the above problem.
Plasma cutters emit huge amounts of interference when firing the torch, most of them do 20000V at high frequencies. Protecting the electronics from that is the most important part of building a reliable CNC plasma machine.
There are several articles describing proper grounding,
www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=x2-YX...QLA7AQ4dUDCAY&uact=5

Christoph wrote: Ok, thanks, I will try to improve shielding and grounding.

I think the problem is the Mesa Card, I already replaced the PC but it changed nothing...

The /done led is not illuminated.

Do you think the Mesa Card can be repaired?

Possibly, my guess is that the TX part of the Ethernet chip is fried (so it can receive packets but not respond)