Looking for Some Help Configuring System For The First Time

I want to do two things before we get into it. First apologize, I could not find the answer to my question despite searching and trying to read through the manual. Imagine that it is in there but just missed it since some of the nomenclature goes right over my head unfortunately. Second, introduce myself. I am just switching from Mach3 to LinuxCNC for my next build. The first runs well enough but I would like to have a bit more of an updated control than Mach offers. I am engineer in the automation/robotics industry, but I do the mechanical design work. I build this stuff for fun and to support my side business.

I am running 2.9. The reason is that I am here to try plasmac. Reading through that configure documentation has you start with a running config. Unfortunately that is where I am stuck. Using the pncconf I cannot get the system to respond (stepper to move). The board is answering pings. The lights flash on and off in a pattern when I ping 10.10.10.10 so I am sure that portion is good now (though that was a challenge as well). But going through pncconf it looks like it is setup more servos. I am used to just inputting what pin goes where but can't find where to do that manually. If I run the system in one direction long enough it produces an error, "joint 0 following error". This suggests that the system thinks that there is an encoder, but that is not my plan for the time being. I am looking for someone to point me in the right direction on setting up the system properly for steppers.

My setup is a bench test setup right now. Mesa 7i76e, THCAD, DM542T driver and a nema 23. I am just interested in getting some motion from stepgen0 before I move on to the next phase of my build, the panel.

This is well out of my experience level, but...

I always thought that StepConf was for stepper-based systems, and PNCConf was for servo-based systems?

Reading through the Plasmac threads, I often see PNCConf referred to when the OP has stated that they are using steppers, so I may be way off track here, so my apologies if I got this wrong!

I tried that. I am going to try a few other things to see if I can get it to work.

I was getting an error because I changed the servo thread value. A quick google search showed some responses from you tommylight and got me going there.
hm2/hm2_7i76e.0: error finishing read! iter=6
Put it back to where it was recommended and the error went away. Still nothing from the stepper but now I can job the system and it shows movement on the screen and doesn't fault.

Back to trying to figure out if the steppers are trying to move.

Also it would help to post your current hal/ini files so that they can be checked for obvious problems

Pete,
Because you followed me to this forum, I better make sure you get this going!
I'm going to assume you have a gantry machine. I have very similar hardware (DM542a stepper controllers) and ages ago I wrote an example gantry config for the Mesa 7i76e. I posted it on this thread
forum.linuxcnc.org/47-hal-examples/34072...ranch-gantry-example

Take the time to read it and feel free to try it or parts of it

There has been a change to Linuxcnc that breaks one line of this code becasue of multi spindle support introduced in V 2.8 after I did my config.
Should now be:

The reason why I wrote this example is that I was asked to check 7i76e support added to PNCCONF on a real machine. Which was kinda funny as I never used one of the config generators....

To get my machine going, I copied a config from Islander261 and edited to suit my equipment. So you can do the same thing!

The only thing I will say is my timings are very fast by PCW's and Tommy's standards, I was really just trying to push the limits to see how fast the 7i76e could run its stepgens to. In the ini file here:You could probably treble them to be safe... But heck they've worked since day dot at this on a very similar stepper controller!

I'll let the others suggest better values..

And yes, like you I was totally confused about pid controls and wondered why that was like that to learn that is just how it is! Its just one of those things that makes Linuxcnc so flexible. eg. You might be converting a machine with linear scales for a DRO on it and you could use those for the encoder feedback.

And one more thing. If you go out of estop and turn the machine on, do your steppers have holding torque? You should.

If you have connected any wires to the enable signals, please remove them becasue these are drive disable signals. Ask me how I know this??? fruitless hours trying for movement....

I use them to disable the steppers on an estop via a relay.

Rodw, thank you. I am going to try that configuration. It might be a few hours before I can. Right now my "machine" is a test setup. It will be a gantry machine so I tried to set it up in the pncconf as a gantry machine with a slave y motor. There is only one drive and one motor hooked up right now.

As for posting the .hal and .ini files....I will try to do that. I am actually on my CAD rig with my linux machine setup next to it. Haven't been posting from that machine. It is unbelievable how many times I have grabbed that mouse to try working on my work computer.

The steppers do have holding torque. It was one of the first things that I tested. I usually don't use the enable signals...though I actually like the idea of doing that in the event of an e-stop. Good idea there.