5i25 + 7i77 + 7i64

First, thank you to those who helped me get my first LinuxCNC retrofit conversion this far. It was mostly the usual suspects. You know who you are. I was having trouble getting PNCconf to configure the 5i25, but this info fixed that.

www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/russian/compo...ew&catid=39&id=21670

Now I'm able to read and write the inputs and outputs on the 7i77 that I'm using for the main panel I/O and servo control, as well as most of the I/O on the 7i64 that I'm using as the remote I/O.

The problem I'm having is that PNCconf is autoconfiguring as a 5i25 with two 7i77 boards. It seems to think the 7i64 is a 7i77, so I get configuration options for 24 inputs and 16 outputs and some PWM outputs that aren't on the 7i64, and I'm not getting all of the 7i64's 24 inputs and 24 outputs, which I need.

PNCconf gives me "sanity check" options for 7i29, 7i30, 7i33, 7i40 and 7i48. It initially had the 7i33 option selected, but I deselected it. The firmware pull down list under 5i25 didn't offer 7i77+7i64, so I selected 7i77x2, so I guess that's why it's giving me two 7i77 boards. Am I out of luck until someone creates a firmware XML for 7i77+7i64?

Here's the PNCconf screenshot. The Smart Serial 3 tab is the two banks of 7i77 digital I/O that are actually part of the 7i64, and Smart Serial 4 is the 7i77 PWM outputs, that map to I don't know where on the 7i64.



Other than this, I've been making good progress with several all nighters. The 5i25 is talking to the 7i77 and 7i64 via the RS422 cable, and all boards are properly powered. The remote I/O is wired to the 7i64 (nearly full board) and I'm going to double back and start working on the 7i77 stuff until the 7i64 issue is resolved. Tonight's goal is to wire the servo drive and jog the Z axis.

I'm still a LinuxCNC noob, but I feel that I'm finally making progress in the real world instead of learning LinuxCNC while spinning my wheels trying to climb up that initial steep learning curve.

I have pictures I'll post in a separate thread. This is a huge machine, and I think it'd be interesting for others to see it being rewired and coming back to life with LinuxCNC. The guys in the shop are stoked about it, as it'll be MUCH better than the 20 year old CNC controls and lame hardware it had.

Well you could always start with the pncconf generated file and hand edit the hal file to get what you need. For a fancy config you will likely have to do this eventually anyway

It is impractical to have xml file for every configuration so I think it would be really really nice if pncconf had the option of working with the pins its has, or a tool for generating the xml files from halcmd --> show pin and halcmd --> show param

I was hoping someone would post that they just finished a PNCconf XML file for the 5i25-7i77-7i64, but I kinda figured I'd eventually be editing the HAL file. I was hoping to at least get the basic configuration in PNCconf before adding the weird stuff, but I guess the big expenditure of time will be figuring it out, and once that's done, the difference between manually configuring a little bit or manually configuring everything is not that great.

I guess I'm back in the steep learning curve of figuring out how to configure LinuxCNC without the handy GUI PNCconf utility. The experts on here kept pushing me in that direction, as well as several other LinuxCNC newbies, but we were resistant to that helpful suggestion. PNCconf is a siren that lures novice CNC engineers into crashing on the rocks. It looks so appealing, but ultimately disappoints in all but the simplest and most common configurations.

The problem is that with sserial especially there are almost endless possible configurations so without a config utility that deals with the actual available HAL pins "discovered" from a live configuration , or alternatively a tool for making the XML files from a live configuration, the likelyhood of having the right XML file around is small if you venture far from the beaten path.

But you can at least save yourself a lot of typing errors by getting a pin list and parameter list
from your hardware configuration and using its as a "donor" file for copy pasting pin names:

halcmd show pin >pinlist
halcmd show param .>paramlist

Here is how to get what you want.
on the mesa I/O - config page set the number of encoder to 6 and the number of sserial channels to 3 and press 'accept changes'

this gets rid of the second 7i77 board components and allows them to be GPIO (you will see that on the connector 2 tab)

Now on the connector 3 tab look for the smartserial # 2 combo box. left side second box down.
select the 7i64 board and a tab will appear - 'smart serial #2'
This is the tab to configure the 7i64 board.

This will work as long as you have the current bug fixes available from builbot or by compiling yourself.
If you don't you will have to wait till the next bug fix release which is supposed to come out soon.

Chris

Thank you Chris!

That's brilliant! Not particularly intuitive to the newbies, but brilliant. I just got home so I'm not at the machine now, but I'll try this tomorrow.

I do have the latest buildbot.

I think I may have accidentally done exactly what you recommended in one of my many PNCconf attempts (imagine an infinitely large room full of monkeys randomly poking keyboards connected to computers running PNCconf ) I seem to remember having the 7i64 I/O configured in the tabs at one point. Or did I dream that?

I know I'll still be manually editing a HAL file soon enough, but hopefully this will forestall that day until after I have most of the stuff configured in PNCconf and at least three axes of motion working.

Now to try to figure out the resolution on the black box Siemens encoder on the Z axis. I might need to start guessing and make small measured moves and revise my guesses.

I would love an idea how to make this more intuitive.
Did you read the help page available on PNCconf ?

The 5i25 and smart serial are fairly new and so were not included in the PNCconf plan from the beginning.
In fact PNCconf was planned for the old 5i20 component which was not very flexible at all!

The XML file defines the firmware on the main board (the 5i25 in this case) not the sserial boards.
This is because the user can add any of the sserial boards and in some cases in several different serial channels.
As Peter said the combos are pretty endless.
I have not noticed even a fairly common combination.

That being said there are currently not that many available firmwares for the 5i25.
The most common ones PNCconf can configure.
and the most popular sserial daughter boards PNCconf can configure.

The biggest problem at the moment is the XML firmware description is not available when you get the other hostmot2 firmware for linuxcnc, you have to install them manually.
And that the bug fixes need to be released! that is coming soon I hear.
The third problem is only one developer works on PNCconf so testing gets behind and it often requires the actual hardware.
Mesa has been very generous in this regard. They are a great company. please continue to support them in the future.

One thing I could do is write an XML file that fools PNCconf into thinking the 7i77x2 only has one 7i77.
the same with the 7i76x2.

It's faily common for people to be come overwhelmed with the two board option..

cmorley wrote:

I would love an idea how to make this more intuitive.

Well, IMO, a very intuitive user interface would autodetect the entire MESA configuration, automagically. Power up the boards and connect them in the proper configuration, and PNCconf tells the user what is where, instead of asking.

Or, the user manually configures the MESA system in PNCconf. There would be a way to tell PNCconf which MESA card is in PCI slot 0, and which MESA card (if any) is in PCI slot 1, and for each of those, there could be one or two connected boards, and for each of those, there could be zero to however many Smart Serial boards daisy chained.

Of course, in a perfect world, every MESA board would be fully supported in PNCconf before the MESA hardware ships to customers.

However, I do realize the open source nature of this monumental and wonderful endeavor, and the difficulty in testing many different configurations, and I'm very sympathetic to PNCconf being written for one board and then along comes the 5i25 that works differently and you're trying to make PNCconf work in a way it was never intended, so I don't expect it to be perfect (my version of perfect, of course )



cmorley wrote:

Did you read the help page available on PNCconf ?

Yes, I did read the PNCconf help, several times, but not tonight, and I don't think I read it the last time I was working with PNCconf. To be honest, this is a big project, I'm doing it in the evenings (after several all night sessions last week) after my real job, and I'm now officially an old engineer so I'm not as quick as I once was. I've kind of lost my technical edge lately.



cmorley wrote:

The 5i25 and smart serial are fairly new....

I think this is a lot of my problem. I was explaining that to one of the guys tonight. We're trading their crummy 20 year old CNC hardware for the very latest and greatest, and life on the bleeding edge can be tough, as you might be the first person to have ever gone this far.



cmorley wrote:

The XML file defines the firmware on the main board (the 5i25 in this case) not the sserial boards.
This is because the user can add any of the sserial boards and in some cases in several different serial channels.
As Peter said the combos are pretty endless.
I have not noticed even a fairly common combination.

I was hoping the 5i25+7i77+7i64 would be a common enough combination that somebody would have an XML for it.

Once I eliminate the second 7i77 and let it find the 7i64, can I upload an XML file to help the next poor guy?



cmorley wrote:

The third problem is only one developer works on PNCconf so testing gets behind

I can't say THANK YOU often enough.



cmorley wrote:

Mesa has been very generous in this regard. They are a great company. please continue to support them in the future.

I bought the MESA hardware for my Clausing 10X24 lathe conversion (barely started), and then I bought the MESA hardware for this big gantry machine. Both times, I had pre-purchase questions and Peter was VERY helpful. I have a milling machine CNC conversion coming someday, after I knock out a few of these current projects, and a laser engraver project I want to control with LinuxCNC as well, and probably another CNC project or two. I don't want to get into the CNC retrofitting business, lucrative as that might be, but I will have enough LinuxCNC work in my future that I expect I won't need nearly as much community support after this first one, and I can start answering questions instead of asking them.

As always, the generous help of those on this forum is greatly appreciated, and despite my naive questions, I feel that I've come a long way already. I still have a long way to go, but I'm nearly productive now.

I'm looking forward to my CNC lathe conversion. 5i25 and 7i76 driving Gecko servo controllers in STEP/DIR mode. It should be a piece of cake after this big complicated gantry saw and dual router.

It's almost 2 AM here, and I'm so enthused and eager to try the PNCconf stuff that I'm tempted to drive across town and try it tonight!

Thanks again!