Novakon Mill Conversion - Getting Started

@Whizbang,

You're in business.

Mesa cards have firmware onboard that configures the card in certain ways.  PCW has confirmed above that there is a firmware file that configures the 6i25 to work with the C11 BOB.

So you connect the LCNC PC to the C11 with the existing DB25 cable, and you're off to the races.

Flashing the 6i25 is not extraordinarily complicated.

As far as IO I have 3 limit switches (if this matters, they are inductive based switches), an EStop and a switch located on my door to the drawbar to prevent spindle operation (I am ok eliminating this if need be). Additionally there is probably some analog IO that controls spindle speed, I have a VFD that powers a 220V motor for my spindle. It controls speed from 0-4500rpm.

Reading the following comment about the P2/P3 board. Looks like P3 is the connector out the back of the computer.

I have attached a picture of my 6i25 as it is a few years old so make sure it will work with the C11 BoB mentioned previously.

I also uploaded the mach.xml file, not sure if it is it of any benefit to understand how many IO I need or if I have enough IO?

Assuming the C11 breakout does all machine I/O there should be no other
hardware changes needed other than swapping the parallel port with the 6I25.

 

Whizbang wrote:

I also uploaded the mach.xml file, not sure if it is it of any benefit to understand how many IO I need or if I have enough IO?

 

Yes, it's useful.

Have a look in the file and you can set up a spreadsheet to make it easier to read.

In the xml file you'll see a list of components, and each line has "something...port-N" or similar.  following line has "something...pin-N".

Any line/component where the port/pin number isn't 0 is something that actually exists.  Anything where the port/pin is 0 is a placeholder for Mach3.

So the following lines:
Tell you that Motor 0 (probably X-axis) has the step pin on port 1, pin 2, and the direction pin on port 1, pin 3.

That info is also available just by looking at the C11 and tracing wires back to the Geckos and limit switches and so forth.

tommylight wrote:

tommylight post=294057 userid=17274

Note that port numbering might not be the same, it was way to long, but i think mach3 numbers porst from 1 while Linux numbers them from 0.

good point Tommy.  What the xml decoding should do is tell the OP what's connected to the C1, not the port/pin name in LCNC.

 

I may be over thinking things, but I reviewed an old CNC zone where there was debate about which config file to use based on rev of C11 board. I downloaded the zipped software file from the MESA website. I have the C11G rev 8.2, do I use c11g bitfile/pinfile? or c11gx2? something else?

If you have a C11G you should use the C11Gx2 firmware

The difference between the C11 and C11G is that the C11 uses a frequency
to set the spindle analog output voltage while the C11G uses PWM duty cycle.

So, I need some help. I originally created a generic configuration for a ini and hal file in PNCconf because my card was not listed.

Per the recommendations in this thread I have since flashed my board with the 5i25_C11gx2 firmware and reconfigured so that the computer thinks my 6i25 is a 5i25 and will work with my C11G BoB. During the configuration, I selected the 5i25 but I was forced to select a daughter board before I could continue through the setup. All the daughter boards were 7 series, I think this may be where things went wrong? Image attached to show my options.
 

When I open PNC config to try and create a new configuration I am told I have no hostmot2 firmware downloaded in folder /lib/firmware/hm2/. I don't even have a hm2 folder in /lib/firmware/.

As I understand the LCNC errors, a 7 series ethernet card is trying to connect but obviously doesn't exist. The hal file is still calling out a 7 series board, not a 5i25. The ini file also called out a 7 series card and I changed that one to 5i25 on line 56 but I don't know that I did that correctly.

I checked the jumpers on the Mesa board and know that the 5V is disabled and I can plug into the C11g without risk of frying anything.

Do I need to reconfigure? If so, how do I handle the daughter board selection (assuming that was my problem)?
Or do I manually change the hal and ini files? If so, what do I change so that is works with the 6i25 board I am using?

I attached the error message and the ini and hal files for reference.