Installing a new PCI ParaPort in linux?

I am trying to get my CNC running again. It was determined my BOB and possibly Paraport were bad. So I got a new PCI ParaPort and put it in, but I have no idea how to make LinuxCNC recognize the new port.

I know nothing about the Linux operating system and all the guides i find may as well be written in Chinese as much as I can follow them.

Can anybody give me a step by step in 5 year old terms to help me get this installed ?

Thanks,
Mike

Did you get a new bob as well? (Since the old one is probably what killed the other port.)

Other wise there is probably a very good chance you won't have to do anything other than plug it in. The new one will probably configure for the same port numbers if you're replacing a bad card. If your adding a card to replace a bad on board port, you'll need to look up the new cards addresses. Let us know if you need help with that. (I'd have to look it up, can't remember exactly how off the top of my head.)

I did get a new BOB, a c10 from cnc4pc. I haven't put the Bob in yet. Just the paraport, but the old paraport was on the MB. With the new port I get no response, if I plug into the old port I can still power up and jog the machine with the old Bob still in.

You are going to have to look up the address used by your card then.

From a command prompt type:
lspci -v
press enter

A whole lot of information should then puke out upon your screen. You'll need to scour through that info looking for something that looks like info about an I/O card.
Here is an example for a Netmos card
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?NetMos
(this only shows the info for that card, you'll have to sift through a lot more data than this in the lspci -v output.)
Once you find the addresses for your card, there will probably be more than one listed (probably 4-6), you will need to use trial and error to determine which one is the one to use.

Try the address by editing your hal file and changing the address in the line
loadrt hal_parport cfg="0x378"
to
loadrt hal_parport cfg="0x????"
The question marks should be where you type the new address.

If anyone knows a better way please share it.

okay, i will give that a shot in a bit, hoping i cand figure out how t get a C:/ lol

I THINK i found the address, but still no function. The reason i think i found it is because one of the addresses finally let my toggle the "power" on AXIS and the controller went live. So the PC thinks its doing something, but is still didnt trip the relay that actually powers the machine. Looks like I need to figure out what pins go where now.......maybe?

Hi,

It is covered here.

www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum...-parallel-port-cards

So long as you just use the card parport address and not both, all your connections should be correct.

regards

So youre saying if i get the correct port address everything should work as it used to from the MB port? I only saw 4 addresses to try and the one im using is the only one that did anything, but only to the GUI and not to the actual machine. Maybe I missed something?

HI MAG45,
Yesterday I built a new box and for sure the hard part is the paraport. The link above from ArcEye seems to have all the info you would need, it is what I used. This link 4743-parallel-port-tester , made figuring it out fast. You can edit ptest.hal and test imedeatly.

I found from lspci -v I got:
Parallel controller: NetMos Technology PCI 9865 Multi-I/O Controller (prog-if 03 [IEEE1284])
Subsystem: Device a000:2000
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 18
I/O ports at dcb0
I/O ports at dcb8
...

And with:
loadrt hal_parport cfg="0x378 0xdcb0"

I could step a motor. This is a cheap ebay parallel port. In my case the connector was on dcb0. cng= with 'in' and 'out' did not work but bare addresses did. I don't understand why 0x387 is nessasary, but it is, (legacy?). Then move your io to paraport.1, like:

addf parport.1.read porttest
addf parport.1.write porttest

net pin01 PortTest.btn01 parport.1.pin-01-out PortTest.led-01
net pin02 PortTest.btn02 parport.1.pin-02-out PortTest.led-02
net pin03 PortTest.btn03 parport.1.pin-03-out PortTest.led-03
...

When I copied/modified this into the standard_pinout.hal the motor ran as I machined the sample!

Of course, I'm assuming you got a cheap card like I did.
Best, Dan.

I did get a cheap ParaPort off ebay, a dual port Netmos board. I have been only changing the port address in the step config wizard. Do I need to do it in terminal with that command ?