7i85 show pin confusion

When I use show pin to show what pins are generated for my 5i25 / 7i76 / 7i85 combination, I am seeing quite a few more pins than I was expecting (see attached file).

While I understand that some signals are simply inverted (NOT) versions of others, I was expecting the 7i85 to be offering me 4 encoders and 5 RS-422 channels. Instead I seem to be seeing 6 encoders, as well as a load (32) of apparently additional GPIO I wasn't expecting.

I'm sure I just don't know what I'm looking at but would like to understand what's going on here. Bottom line is that I need to connect up 2 linear encoders (X and Z) through the 7i85. I could do this by trial and error using the hal tools but that wouldn't clear up my confusion.

I can't clear this up from my scan of the documentation - perhaps someone could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks

The 7I76 has an encoder so you have 5. Plus multiplexed encoders are always in pairs
so there is a dummy encoder. The GPIO is always available even if the pins are used for things a like encoders.

It might be clearer if you got the actual physical pinout with

sudo mesaflash --device 5i25 --readhmid

Aha. So I can see P3 (7i76) and P2 (7i85)

Configuration pin-out:

IO Connections for P3
Pin# I/O Pri. func Sec. func Chan Pin func Pin Dir

1 0 IOPort StepGen 0 Dir/Table2 (Out)
14 1 IOPort StepGen 0 Step/Table1 (Out)
2 2 IOPort StepGen 1 Dir/Table2 (Out)
15 3 IOPort StepGen 1 Step/Table1 (Out)
3 4 IOPort StepGen 2 Dir/Table2 (Out)
16 5 IOPort StepGen 2 Step/Table1 (Out)
4 6 IOPort StepGen 3 Dir/Table2 (Out)
17 7 IOPort StepGen 3 Step/Table1 (Out)
5 8 IOPort StepGen 4 Dir/Table2 (Out)
6 9 IOPort StepGen 4 Step/Table1 (Out)
7 10 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData0 (Out)
8 11 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData0 (In)
9 12 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData1 (Out)
10 13 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData1 (In)
11 14 IOPort MuxedQCount 0 MuxQ-IDX (In)
12 15 IOPort MuxedQCount 0 MuxQ-B (In)
13 16 IOPort MuxedQCount 0 MuxQ-A (In)

IO Connections for P2
Pin# I/O Pri. func Sec. func Chan Pin func Pin Dir

1 17 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData6 (In)
14 18 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData6 (Out)
2 19 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData5 (In)
15 20 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData5 (Out)
3 21 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData4 (In)
16 22 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData4 (Out)
4 23 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData3 (In)
17 24 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData3 (Out)
5 25 IOPort SSerial 0 RXData2 (In)
6 26 IOPort SSerial 0 TXData2 (Out)
7 27 IOPort MuxedQCountSel 2 MuxSel0 (Out)
8 28 IOPort MuxedQCount 1 MuxQ-A (In)
9 29 IOPort MuxedQCount 1 MuxQ-B (In)
10 30 IOPort MuxedQCount 1 MuxQ-IDX (In)
11 31 IOPort MuxedQCount 2 MuxQ-A (In)
12 32 IOPort MuxedQCount 2 MuxQ-B (In)
13 33 IOPort MuxedQCount 2 MuxQ-IDX (In)

I'm seeing 2 encoders, which may be because I somehow configured it thus, although I don't recall. Otherwise presumably I'd see another couple listed?

Thanks

Mesaflash shows all the hardware (its showing 6 encoders here)
Muxed encoders share a set of pins for 2 encoders

So
Muxed encoder 0 on the 7I76 = hal encoders 0 and 1 (1 is a dummy)
Muxed encoders 1 and 2 on the 7I85 = hal encoders 2,3,4,5

That makes sense. I've made the changes and will try it out tomorrow. It feels as if I'm getting there.

Can someone tell me why I have both of these scale parameters in my ini file [JOINT_0] stanza? They were both generated by PNCconf but the documentation seems to suggest they both address the same factor ie how many steps per machine unit. Surely I don't need both / which one do I need / is one of them redundant?

INPUT_SCALE = 4000
.....
STEP_SCALE = 400.0

STEP_SCALE is steps per unit
INPUT_SCALE is typically encoder counts per unit

Thanks - that makes sense.

Elsewhere in the documentation I saw an ENCODER_SCALE parameter being described, perhaps in v2.6. This one went in [TRAJ] but I'm guessing it was superseded by the INPUT_SCALE parameter.

Most of these names are arbitrary
They just have to be consistent from file to file
in the same configuration (like signal names)