mb2hal and 7i76e UART?

The Mesa 7i76e has an RS-422 port available. According to the manufacturer, “There is a UART component available in the firmware but theres is currently no hal component available that uses the UART firmware to drive a modbus device.”

Is that true of mb2hal as well? Can it be configure to communicate using the RS-422 port on the 7i76e? If not, what would it take to add this support? I'm a competent software developer, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the linuxcnc code.

linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/drivers/mb2hal.html

It would be great if you took up the challenge on a project I had in mind.

I was going to have a go at controlling a Hypertherm plasma cutter with modbus via the 7i76e but ended up buying a Thermal Dynamics machine that does not have a RS485 Interface.

PCW made a bit file at my request for the 7i76e with UART support. See this thread for the link:
forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3328...6e-with-uart?start=0
There is a link to an example component in that thread: github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master...ivers/mesa_uart.comp

I think if you were going to have a go at this you'd start with V2.9 code as thats where your final code will end up. So have a look at the meagre docs about the uart in hostmot2
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/man/man9/hostmot2.9.html

There is an example using this to talk to a gyroscope
github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master...sa_pktgyro_test.comp

I was planning on using a modbus emulator program to do the development with.

Good luck with this. I don't think it would be hard to do as the TX and RX functions already exist so from there its just protocol parsing required. Please keep me in the loop.