I was told to ask Mesa 5/6i25 questions here.

I was told that this forum was the place for these questions, so here they are:

1.) I see that the big difference bewteen a 5i25 and 6i25 is PCI versus PCIe busses. For a new Mesa user with both kinds of slots open on my motherboard what would be the difference (using LinuxCNC 2.7.4 with 5 steppers) ? I.e. why would I pay $20 more for PCIe board versus PCI board?

2.) Would a 5/6i25 board effect my motion speeds (versus the parallel port board I'm now using); and if so how or how much? My base/25us latency is now about 21,000ns (with LinuxCNC 2.7.4)(with 2.5 it was 28,000)(with 10% cushions).

3.) Would a 5/6i25 board eliminate the baseband/25us stuff and/or obviate max jitter limitations? What kind of step rates could I expect? (not that my machine could tolerate them, but I'd like to know, perhaps I could increase my micro-stepping factor)

4.) Would the 5/6i25 unburden the CPU? Would it be as reliable or more reliable than my parport version?

5.) I've looked at pncconf (I heretofore have used stepconf) and I see some Mesa-related stuff. Are the 5i25 and 6i25 in there? What about the 7i76 daughter board? Or is there some new software or files for the 5i25 or 6i25 for pncconf?

6.) I want to use 5 steppers and a bunch of the typical I/O stuff (limits, home, spn, estop, etc.) would a 5i25 or 6i25 along with a 7i76 be the right choice? I like not having a 50pin ribbon and I like screw terminal for my drivers and i/o.

7.) What additional software (besides a running LinuxCNC and pncconf) would be needed? Would I need various bit files? Would I need to load a configuration bit file into the FPGA? Are there other software tools and files involved? That's okay, I just want to know up front.

8.) Is a network/internet needed for anything on that CNC machine? I have zero connectivity to that PC. I use a USB stick for transferring everything to that machine. (I obviously have internet in my house on my windows PC)

9.) Are these boards in stock? How long before delivery?

10.) Is there anything else I should know?

1. No performance difference, PCI may be hard to find on newer MBs
2. It depends... The hardware stepgen has no practical step rate limitations but the
stepdrive and motor are often the limiting factor. That said, the hardware stepgen
generates a cleaner pulse stream and can often improve step rate even when software stepping is
theoretically adequate
3. When a hardware steggen is used, no basethread is needed, only a servo thread
depending on how the stepgen is setup, around 50 to 500 usec of jitter are tolerable in the servo thread
maximum step rate on a 5I25 is about 8 MHz
4. Typically yes (that is, the base thread may use a significant amount of CPU time)
5. pncconf supports the 5I25/6i25+7I76
6. Yes, if you have a fair amount of I/O, a 5i25./6i25 + 7I76 makes sense
7. None
8. No, but no network does make everything a bit awkward.I would consider using the network
at least initially just as a time saver
9. 7I76s are in stock, 6I25s are in stock, 5I25s are backordered but may be available from mesaus.com

PCW, Thanks for the answers. That mostly makes more sense to me now.

Except: #7 and #8.

#7 asks if there're any more software|files|tools needed other than a running LinucCNC + pncconf.
Answer: "No"

#8 asks if a network/internet is needed for anything on that CNC machine?
Answer: " No, but no network does make everything a bit awkward.I would consider using the network
at least initially just as a time saver"

So I am confused about what seems a contradiction. If there is no "extra" software, file or tools needed, then why would a network connection make it less awkward and save time? It is much less time for me to copy stuff to a USB stick and 'walknet' it to the garage than it would be to run a Cat5 out there or a wifi or whatever. The machine is too big to move to my house, not to mention the fit my wife would throw !

Can I just order from the Mesa Store?
Thanks!

Yes, I understand that a network connection would make things easier. And a point I was trying to make here and on another topic is that (I assume) there are some numbers of people without those connections, like me; and I noticed a very pronounced slant in many/most forum topics to assume a connection is there. I, maybe right or maybe wrong, hoped that posters would remember that some of us do not have connections to our machine's PCs. It would take a 200+ft cat5 in my case and that would be out a window with the screen removed (wife wouldn't like!). A USB stick is easier. I could even get a portable DVD drive. But rather than all of that I prefer to use "walknet". Maybe I'm just stubborn that way.

Also, I have disabled the Realtek network stuff in my machine PC's BIOS and several other onboard features so as to improve performance and/or reduce software problems.

Anyway, I DO appreciate what you're saying. I'm just being obstinate; but hoping others in similar boats will benefit.

How about a temporary wifi connection across

Clive thanks for your suggestion.

My garage is about 250ft walking from my house or 200ft in a bee-line from the nearest LAN-jack in my house. BUT, my house is partially earth sheltered (underground; we are off-grid) and my garage is too (we live in the desert in the boonies). There is a huge amount of earth between the two and I doubt that wifi would penetrate. I have wifi in my house and routinely use it with my cellphone. My cellphone cannot "see" the wifi if from the garage. I have a skylight/window that I could remove a screen for a temporary cat5 (just over 220ft Lan_jack to cnc PC). That would probably work as a temporary thing. It would be even more work to remove the PC_portion from the cnc machine and bring it into the house and then it would not have any benefit of being connected to the machine. I could envision possibly having to carry that PC back and forth a number of times. I could also add an outside wifi antenna (from house) and another above the garage then I could flash DD-WRT into some old Cisco routers I have and set them to be a wireless bridge without disturbing the wifi in my house. But that's a lot to do too.

I was just simply trying to do 2 things:

1.) bring it to the attention of forum post responders that there seemed ( to me, a Linux dummy) to be a lack of info about doing various things without any network (e.g. with a USB stick only). It seemed to me that there was usually an assumed network connection.

2.) find out HOW TO do an upgrade (2.5 to 2.6 or 2.6 to 2.7) specifically without a network connection (e.g. with a USB stick).

While there were a number of suggestions, they were all in the vein of 'get it connected to the internet' THEN just follow the directions at the LinuxCNC.org website. I appreciate that those directions are there, but they just don't fit my circumstanced. I feel like a square peg trying to fit a round hole. Being very frustrated, I finally said f@#! it and with some efforts did a full iso install (as it now sits).

While I really do appreciate the good intentions of you and those posters, I was holding out for an answer to my original question about how to do it without a net connection. If anyone posted that and I just missed it then I apologize. I just didn't see any. Clearly I ruffled some feathers, perhaps too much. I'll just back off now.

Thanks anyway.

Ok well you are in an extreme situation as you say a wifi bridge is easy to set up I have done it over several Kmtrs .

Just a thought (it might work) have you tried a homeplug system if the two building are on the same phase it might just work.

www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-real-world-performance.htm

PCW wrote:

3. When a hardware steggen is used, no basethread is needed, only a servo thread
depending on how the stepgen is setup, around 50 to 500 usec of jitter are tolerable in the servo thread
maximum step rate on a 5I25 is about 8 MHz

Hi Peter

I have bought 1x 7i92H and 1 x 5i25 from mesa and need to run with step rate 8Mhz. both of board can run with 8Mhz step rate? And how to config boards run at 8Mhz?

Thanks