[SOLVED] Run stepconf with non-standard parallel port/parport address

  • clunc
  • clunc's Avatar Topic Author
  • Offline
  • Elite Member
  • Elite Member
More
17 Mar 2022 23:02 #237584 by clunc
I've had to build a "new" old LinuxCNC controller machine when my earlier HP/Compaq running Debian 7 motherboard got hit with some bad voltage.

I have brought another old Dell Optiplex 780 out of retirement and managed to compile a new RT-PREEMPT-based Ubuntu/Linux Mint 20.4 install, and have LinuxCNC pre2.9 running on it.

After transferring the, working, parallel-port PCI cards, I finally identified their (new) port addresses with 'lspci -vvv' and experimentation [LinuxCNC can move the machine through either 0xdce8 or 0xdcf8].

Latency seems okay. Giving up on my weeks-long attempt to be absolutely sure the system was going to perform as before, I finally made some simple safety mods to the LinuxCNC splash/demo G-code and executed it. (Things like setting max speed limits.)

I had checked that Homing routines worked fine before starting.

I had thought to continue my investigations with 'stepconf', but I couldn't get stepconf to talk to the machine.

I then discovered three lines in the working .stepconf file from the previous machine's setup which appear related to the parallel-port address, but I haven't found a stepconf-file reference to confirm that's what they are.

The lines are:
  <property name="ioaddr" type="string" value="1118"/>
  <property name="ioaddr2" type="string" value="0x1110"/>
  <property name="ioaddr3" type="string" value="2"/>

In the working setup, I had two parallel ports, 1118 and 1128, and both had identical ioaddr2 and ioaddr3 entries, leading me to believe that the ioaddr2 needed to be "0xdc00" for my two ports of dce8 and dcf8.

I edited these lines for my case to:
  <property name="ioaddr" type="string" value="dce8"/>
  <property name="ioaddr2" type="string" value="0xdc00"/>
  <property name="ioaddr3" type="string" value="2"/>

and stepconf proceeded to talk to the machine (because it was connected to that particular parport card) when that .stepconf file was loaded.
The following user(s) said Thank You: tommylight

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.042 seconds
Powered by Kunena Forum