7i77 testers wanted

I'll also look into adding a "spinabs" parameter on 7I77 axis 5 analogout
(though this will take a 7I77 firmware upgrade)

excuse me if i missed it but posting your complete config files would be helpful.
also what version of linuxcnc are you using and how did you get it? ( buildbot 2.5 has fixes in it that are not released yet)

some answers to some questions.
Why does pncconf not use the regular analog enables ?
- actually it does, it is just not on the config page because you cannot config it for anything but enable.

pncconf should work fine for the 7i77 and 7i76 without having to hand edit for for fairly standard machines.
if you do have to hand edit it should be possible to put it all in a custom hal file to keep it separate from pncconf changes.
the 7i77 and 7i76 cards are new and I have not up to recently had any cards to test on so there are still bugs - I will work on the soon ( I'm away at work)


having pncconf inquire pin names from the card automatically is actually not that helpful unless that info comes with context.
and it makes it so building a config without the card present is not possible ( maybe not such a big deal except when developing )

pncconf does have help pages have you read them?
The 7i77 and 7i76 are new and could use some specific info on them.
They do things quite differently them regular hostmot2 and all the docs on the web show the regular way of doing things.
This is where pncconf will help bridge the gap ( when i fix most of the bugs)

Chris M

Hi Chris,
We covered a lot of ground in the last few pages. I think I have it mostly sorted out now. The only real PNCConf issue I had was that when I assigned pins to be X amplifier enable, Y amplifier enable and Z amplifier enable the HAL file it generated called those pins xenable, yenable and zenable but later referenced them as x-enable y-enable and z-enable, which left them disconnected from the LinuxCNC functions. I fixed that manually. The other thing I will have to change is to make the spindle PWM output absolute since my VFD won't respond to negative voltages.

I'll post my HAL file when I get home. I'm still trying to figure out the MPG thing but I think the problem is that I have no means of telling LinuxCNC I want it to use the MPG input to direct motion.

Attached are my HAL and INI files, linear axes still untuned. I didn't have much time tonight but I'm going to continue reading up on HAL commands/syntax so i really understand what I'm doing when I put in those lines to switch the PWM output to an absolute value. At the moment I don't fully understand signals, pins, nets, =>...

Thanks, some of that I've been reading but that's a quick synopsis.

By "output" pins do you mean physical output pins on the 7i77, 5i25, or parport? Or are there also HAL pins that are considered outputs? Why is it limited to one output pin? For instance, I have two physical relays that should be driven by the same "machine is on" signal in linuxCNC - why wouldn't it allow that?

Well its a little confusing...
a physical output pin is a HAL input pin
so you can drive as many physical output pins
as you like with one signal/ HAL pin

conversely a physical input pin is a HAL output pin

I tend to visuallize connections as wires with arrows
so from input terminal --> HAL pin its clear that the HAL pin is an output (data source)
and from HAL pin --> output terminal its clear that the HAL pin is an input (data sink)

Thanks for the explanations. It took me a few minutes to get my head around that but I think it makes sense. Part of the difficulty is that there are pins like hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.output-00 which would be considered HAL input pins, right?

I must understand it to some extent because I was able to successfully do the absolute value operation on the motion.spindle-speed-out and feed that to the PWM output and now my spindle runs in either direction as commanded.

Now to tackle the MPG. I'll update with questions.

UNRELATED TO PNCConf - why does HAL scope disappear forever when I try to assign a pin to one of its inputs now? This is a new "feature"

Thanks for the explanations. It took me a few minutes to get my head around that but I think it makes sense. Part of the difficulty is that there are pins like hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.output-00 which would be considered HAL input pins, right?

Yes the HAL pin name of physical I/O devices match the external signal direction
Think of it as a pipe: the HAL end of the pipe is the input and the physical terminal is the output
excuse my bad ASCII art but note that a physical input pin (IN) looks like an out (source) to HAL
and a physical output pin (OUT) looks like an input (sink) to HAL