Killed my system trying to install a iMach3 P2S pendent

Well you know now.

I'd say there's many users of Linuxcnc that have set there systems up without having to use the forums. Do you have a suggestion about how:
"./vc-p2s.hal:22: Pin 'halui.axis.x.plus' was already linked to signal 'jog-x-pos'"
could be made easier to understand ?

This is just my way of breaking that message down.
First thing don't panic, it's not the end of the world, walk away grab a coffee, tea, glass of milk and a bickie or 2. Hopefully by now you've managed to get all of the hair you've pulled out of head of your hands. I'd try that first before having beverage.
Take a deep breath.

So the first bit is pointing to a hal file. The .hal is a good indication.
The second bit is a number, so it should be safe to assume that it's a line number in a file.
Now the next bit has Pin, so logic would dictate there's a issue with a pin.
The we have a pin name telling us it's already been linked.

If you have a read thru the HAL docs, even the tutorials, you'll get a feel for what was wrong.

I just had a look at your Shuttle post and think that there was a bit of confusion. I've made a comment to as to which file you should look at, that may just work.

Some of us will try and push you in the right direction, so that later on you'll be able to fix things your self. And with a bit of luck you'll be able to answer queries from other users.

Look at this way, you learn a lot more from mistake & errors than never getting anything wrong.

Don't worry I've asked way way more stupid questions than you think you've asked.

Hope this little bit will make you feel better.
About 6 months ago I was constantly getting realtime errors. I'd been running the machine for months without any issue and just couldn't work out why. Spent ages and ages searching the forums and the net trying to fix it. After a few hours it dawned on me I was selecting a non realtime kernel when booting. And that real far from some of the mistakes I've made.
I wont mention the time I swapped two crystals on a board when I was an electronics tech....This had me and the head tech baffled....Then at the same time we both realised what the idiot with the soldering iron did. Lessoned learnt, an oscilloscope is no help if you just look at the waveform and not the frequency.

I'll definitely drink more coffee on the next issue! Sorry for letting my frustration out. Thanks and I'll continue my LinuxCNC Journey. I think the mill is almost done, the Plasma table is next on the list.

I’ve, as we say Down Under, spat the dummy before.

From my experience in the last decade using this platform.....I was in the dark, just another copy and paste bandit until I wanted something I couldn't find. I had to sit down and learn HAL. I still try to double write more often than I'd like as do PLC programmers double coil.

We should be grateful there's a log that more often than not, prints it out specifically!

It was my thirst for HAL that got me into PLC programming. Who knows where this will take you!

P.S. I have the same pendant with the EE box. I love it!

rogerfries wrote:

It's back running! Thanks!! I didn't have much time to test, but after commenting out 15 or so lines it's working, I think I'm back in operation and the pendent even seems to work for at least basic functions. I guess the autopsy doesn't matter too much, but i'm still wondering what went so wrong here. Did I screw it up? in this case, I don't think so, I certainly did not key those lines into the files. Is it poor software from Vista CNC? Or some incompatibility with Vista CNC and the pncconf wizard?

I have the P4-SE and it works great. Once you get your machine basically working forget about pncconf and just make any future changes to your .hal & .ini files manually. If you run pncconf after making manual changes you will lose the manual changes as pncconf will overwrite the files. You will learn a lot more and be able to do things that just can't be handled in pncconf.
There were some bugs in the VistaCNC files for LinuxCNC 2.8 but I reported the issues and they corrected them back in Feb 2020.

As far as backing up the system I use WinSCP on my laptop and connect to the Linux box and copy the /linuxcnc directory from my home directory on the to my laptop. I put the copy in a folder named with the current date so I can roll back it screw something up. To connect to the Linux box using WinSCP you need to install openssh on the Linux machine.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo systemctl restart ssh

If you ever need to restore or create a new install to try a different distro just install Linux and LinuxCNC using one of Tommy's very nice Quick and Easy install instructions. Then copy the linuxcnc folder from your backup to your home folder on Linux. Then start LinuxCNC from the menu. Check the checkbox to create a desktop shortcut and navigate your machine configuration under MyConfigurations on the menu tree. It will create the short and start LinuxCNC.

John

The pendent seems to be working nicely now! I think this will be a better solution than the shuttle pro. I'm just waiting for a couple of 24 volt relays to arrive than I think I'll have a fully functional CNC again. I think then I'll go back and tidy up some wiring.

I did learn the lesson the hard way that the PNCConf wizard is just a quick start wizard and not a settings maintenance screen as it blew away all of the changes I made to get the pendent working, so I got the opportunity to make these changes again. I'll stay well away from pncconf now.

You can still use the wizard....just make sure to only add custom code to the custom.hal and custom_postgui.hal. I like learning the hard way too