CNC Machine with Resolver (7i49)

Hello,

i am a student from germany, so my english may be quite hard to understand, but i'll give it a try.

We are working on a project with a CNC machine recently. Its from Heller out of the 80's.

It is equipped with an old Sinumerik Sprint 8 M from Siemens for its control, we intend to exchange the Sinumerik with a PC which's OS is based on Ubuntu--> LinuxCNC. The CNC machine has 3 Axis (X-Y-Z) and 1 extra Axis for the component on the table to spin. The Position of the Axis (X,Y,Z) is monitored with a Resolver for each Axis. All drives (motor) are Servos.

Our Ubuntu Version is 10.04, we use EMC 2.5 and we downloaded the Life CD from this page (linuxcnc.org) and did the standard installation with it.

We use a 5i22 FPGA card with 4 Mesa daughtercards to handle the signals from the machine. We have 2 I/O cards --> 7i37, 1 encoder card --> 7i48 and 1 resolver card --> 7i49 connected to the FPGA card in the PCI socket.

We used the support software from mesanet.com for our FPGA card to handle the hostmot2. We already isolated a CPU just for LinuxCNC for a better performance in RT (better performance in latency test).

Right now we are trying to build a config with the Pncconfig wizard. in this wizard there are many parameters to set, we worked them through until it asked us wich firmware we want to use with our 5i22 and how many encoder/PWMgen/Stepgen we want to use with the daughtercards. Right next to it there is a sanity check displayed, but it does not contain the 7i49 resolver card. It ends with the 7i48 encoder card.

It also didn't ask for the number of resolver, it just wants to know how many encoder we want to use for our CNC machine.

We looked up the help function and it told us this:

RESOLVER - a resolver encoder counter
used with MESA 7i49 daughter board with special firmware
Some servos have resolvers rather then quadrature encoders

So we need a special firmware!? We looked up what is supported with the Hostmot2 firmware, it said something about Resmod in Hostmot2, so we implemented this Resmod in the Hostmot2 folder but nothing changed in pncconfig it never asked for resolver or the Mesa 7i49!

So we want to know if there is a firmware already build for this issue that we can just copy it to our folder?! Or do we have to build an own firmware to be able to use the 7i49? And if we have to build one on our own, what would be the best thing we should start with?

I hope i explained it understandable, my english is not the best, i barely have to use it so iam not good with it at all.

Best regards

Simon N.

There is no current firmware for the 5I22
that has both a 7I49 and a 7I48.
But it is easy to make (some cut/pastes to make a
new pinout file and re-compile).

I can do this on Monday

What size 5I22 (what model) do you have?

I would appreciate that. If you want to move it into an other thread, feel free to do so .

i am not quite sure which version it is, i think it was the 5i22 1.5 (big) but iam not sure, i would look it up tomorrow, when i am at the university again.

Would be a great help if you could do that.

Best regards

Simon N.

freeby.mesanet.com/sv12_7i48_7i49.zip
is the bit and pin files and a XML file that might be close to what pncconf wants

Thanks, i'll test it on thursday!

Great moderation in this forum, great work!

Hello again,

we tried the firmware with the resolvers and it seems to be working, but now the sockets 4 and 5 are empty so that we could not put our digital signals in it. How can we add these pins to the xml? We tried to gedit the file, but then the pncconfig wizard fails in the process. Do we need to change the .PIN file too or the .BIT file?

We also can not open or edit the .BIT file, is there a special software needed for it?

our FPGA card is 5i22-1.

Best regards

Simon N.