Killed my system trying to install a iMach3 P2S pendent

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