Help with Mesa 7i76E, Cannot get it working.

Can you post your hal and in files?
Did you increase the default step times to say 5000 ns?

Let me know if there are other files you need.

OK, I would not expect those timings to work, I would start with at least 5000 ns for steptime

No change

Let me ask you this. What is the absolute minimum that needs to be connected to this Mesa card for it to control a stepper? I only have a stepper drive connected and one stepper. Do I need to have a limit switch configured and connected? I'm looking for something simple just to make this stupid thing work. I don't have a 24 volt power supply, only a 50 volt unregulated power supply, 12 and 5 volt power supplies. The only power supply connected to the Mesa card is the 5 volt on the P3 connector. The Mesa manual for this card doesn't say anything about any minimum power requirements so maybe that's my issue?

itstheburns327 wrote:

The only power supply connected to the Mesa card is the 5 volt on the P3 connector. The Mesa manual for this card doesn't say anything about any minimum power requirements so maybe that's my issue?

You dont have field power connected?

I tried with with and without field power. The mesa manual says it can power the entire card from the field power input but its not. I still need 5v at p3. As i've said, the mesa manual doesn't specify minimum required power inputs, only that it can power the whole board from field power or p3 for the logic. Is p3 enough to run the rest of the board?

1. You dont need field power to run the step/dir outputs (so 5V at P3 should work)
2. You can run the entire card from 12/24VDC if you wish by powering both the
field power (TB1) and the unregulated logic power (TB3 pins 21 through 24)
from 12/24V ( and no connections to P3 )

I think I'm going to have to abandon LinuxCNC and the Mesa card. I've spent way too much time on this and its not working for whatever stupid reason. It seems that everything is connected correctly and I've tried multiple combinations based on other user configs. I had high hopes of this Mesa card with all of the inputs and outputs, reasonable cost with powerful features and LinuxCNC. I've never had much luck working with any flavor of linux and this experience just adds to that. I have to say, despite the unpleasant hardware experience, the forum experience with you guys has been A++. I want to extend a full thank you to everyone for your time, information and patience.

Before you give up, can you do a very basic test?

Start LinuxCNC and jog X in both directions while measuring the DIR0 outputs
(from +DIR0 to -DIR0)

This should give you about +5v in one direction and about -5V in the other direction

Also have you gotten any error messages from LinuxCNC?