7i77 questions....

Okay guys I just started a thread in the CNC machines part of the forum for my Cincinatti arrow 500 buildup. I am pouring over the 7I77 manual and my setup to try to figure out how to set it up. I have a few questions about it.

I am using the Teco TSTA-30 drives from Machmotion, these drives use an active low enable apparently but I was planning on using the drive enable thru my estop and limit circuit. The drives can be fed +24 volts on another pin and there is a diode circuit in there that goes to the Servo on pin. If I ground the servo on pin and switch the +24v on and off that should be the same as an active high enable for the drive. The 7I77 card uses an enable setup that apparently takes +24v thru the ENA+ pin and outputs it thru the ENA- pin to the drive to turn it off an on. Apparently it can go either way but I am wanting to basically input the 24v thru my estop button and limits and into the 7I77 drive enables so that either an estop or a hard limit trip will kill the circuit as well as an LinuxCNC estop will also turn off the drives. My 24v power supply is setup that there is a -24v and a +24v output. To see 24v on the positive you have to ground the negative oddly enough so that is how it is wired right now. I plan to take the positive lead thru this circuit and into the 7I77 card. My question is where does the ground come from then? Do I ground the 7I77 board, I am also going to be inputting the 24v field power for the I/0 circuits and it has a 24v and a ground but it seems like the analog side of the card is isolated from the I/O side of the card. I am sure this is a stupid question but I want to get this right. If this will work according to the drives manual it will kill power to the motor power side of the drive so it should be safe and it would make wiring all of this up much simpler.

I have the jumpers setup for power to the 7I77 taking the 5v thru the 5I25 card. Is this okay with the 10' lead between them? I would think it should be but not entirely sure.

My MPG came wired up in the original control single ended setup with just an A and B signal and 5v and ground. Can I setup the same way with the input side I believe it was pins 16,17,18,and 19 or something like that? Can you do it single ended thru the inputs to save the analog encoder inputs for an additional actual drive down the road if wanted? What is the best way to power that circuit as my MPG is up front obviously with the computer I was thinking of using 5v from the computers power supply but I don't want any loops... would it be better to get 5v from the board somehow?

I am going to try to hook this up today and get the 7I77 board powered with the 24volts because apparently it cannot be seen by the computer without the field power hooked up. That way I can test the board to see if it is working properly before I start hooking stuff up to it. Appreciate any and all advice here guys.. peace

Pete

I would keep the drive enable and estop circuits separate

The 7I77 enable outputs can be used to directly drive the active low
TECO drive enables: 7I77 ENA- to GND 7I77 ENA+ to TECO DRIVE-ENA
I would not connect any ESTOP related signal here

As far as MPG power goes it depends on where the MPG outputs go
If you use an strandar encoder input for the MPG I would use the encoder power on the encoder connector. If you use field I/O, I wouls use a separate 5V supply with common gnd with your filed I/O power

Peter,
Thanks for the reply, I am kinda stuck here because I am trying to figure the best way to setup the estop circuit. We spoke about this the other night so you know my situation.

Honestly I am not sure what strandar setup is on the MPG, The original MPG has 5v and gnd and A and B channels. I am trying to decide if I should use an analog encoder input one of the six on the board or use the optional Input pins to get the MPG information into LinuxCNC. The MPG needs a 5v power lead from somewhere and I am not sure where is the best place to take it from.

Also I just finally got the 5i25/7i77 boards setup with field power so I can turn on the computer and see if LinuxCNC recognized them. I am completely new to LinuxCNC here so I am having trouble. I got on the forum here and tried to download the zip files for the 5i25XML and the other file at the top of the page there supposedly contains some help files or pin descriptions. Anyways, I downloaded it to my laptop, unzipped the files and put them on my phone(my flash drive smoked) and plugged the phone into Linux. I was able to find both files on the phone but when I try to put them into the library via drag and drop it says permission denied. There was a comment in the forum thread that said something about permissions but I cannot get the files into the libraries. When I open up PNCconf and try to run it there is no 5i25 option listed. The 7I77 board has all the lights in amber but one down near the bottom right of the card near the i/o inputs that is actually red. I am hoping I did not screw anything up here. Any ideas? peace

Pete

thanks john,
actually reading the 7I77 literature it can apparently be hooked up to the inputs to save the dedicated encoder/enable stuff for an additional drive. Honestly with six axes available that leaves me five plus the spindle which is more than I will probably ever need but I was kinda wanting to leave my options open LOL.... That way I can keep all six for actual axes. The real question I had is the 5v since the i/o for the 7I77 uses 24vdc field power the way it is setup so that won't work. I may just have to eat that axis and move on here it is not that big an issue really.

I have been playing with the files in the computer trying to install the host2mot 5i25 firmware files into the directories they go in but I cannot figure out how. No matter what I do it always says permission denied....I tired copy/past, drag/drop, I put it on the desktop and tried it, I even played with the permissions on the file to see if that was it. I THINK I have the right destination file. It is in file system, libraries, HM2.... Maybe I am in the wrong place? Again I know actually jack diddly squat about linux so I may just be doing something really stupid simple wrong here.... Any ideas on this so I can get the 5i25 recognized and start my configuration....peace

Pete

The 5V MPG _will_ work on the field inputs if the MPG encoder option is enabled. (this option provides inputs for 2 MPGs on some field input pins)

You have to have supervisor rights to store files in the /lib directory tree
so you need to use
sudo cp sourcefile destfile
in a terminal window

OKay guys now I'm getting somewhere. I tinkered around with the linux setup and found out how to get to a terminal and typed in Sudo nautilus. This gave me the password request and then I was able to open up the file browser and THEN it allowed me to install the files into the folders. I installed the 5i25 xml file into the hsm2 firmware folder and closed that box. When I tried the PNCconf again thankfully the 5i25 option was there and apparently it either knows the 7i77 is there or it is allowing me to select 7i77x1 or 7i77x2 or other configurations. I selected 7i77x2 due to a comment made by big john that said it allows some kind of options not available on 7i77x1 in the help or something like that. He basically said to use the x2 file and somehow NOT use the additional options. Is there something I need to do to disable that or should I just use 7i77x1 instead. I am now able to configure the software and start hooking things up to the 7i77. Any ideas on the little red led on the board down near the input section? It has me kind of concerned. Thanks for your help guys here today I made a little more progress on this baby.

Back to my build thread now down in the CNC machines section of the forum. Peace

Pete

The red light on newer rev. 7I77s is the field I/O fault indicator
it will be on if field power is supplied but there is no host communication
(the field I/O will have a watchdog fault in this case)

(theres a nearby green LED the will blink at about 1Hz when I/O is running)

Okay excellent, so basically once I configure the hardware it will turn off then and the watchdog will be off. Not being all that familiar with linuxcnc is there a simple way to hookup one circuit at a time and test it without knowing all of the details of the system just yet. IE I have not finished making my IO cables for the drives here and I don't have anything hooked up to the encoder or enable blocks on the 7i77 so far but can I just kinda GUESS at what it will be there and finish the configuration and move onto linuxCNC and try to use the hal which I have never actually seen before to test inputs and outputs? Or does it all need to be hooked up before you try to tie pins to software I/0? does that make any sense? Thanks so much Peter and John for all your help. This is getting good LOL peace

Pete

You can test it manually pin by pin. See e.g. my post here . (The interesting part starts with "I wanted to figure out".)

I had to start PnCConf's Open Loop Test once first to get it to work, but I think that was due to not running the "start" command that I edited in in bold afterwards in that post.