Can't configure Mesa 7i92

I got a new Mesa 7i92 Ethernet board and can't figure out the setup. I just need to plug it straight into the G540, I have the cable (worked with the Ethernet Smoothstepper on Mach3) so it seemed straightforward.

Config Picker offers Mesa board configs, but no 7i92. It has a 7i90 but that's a totally different thing, not even Ethernet-based.

Similarly, PNCConfig doesn't have a 7i92 option.

I did play with the MesaFlash utility- it DOES see the Mesa 7i92 card and returns its IP#, but I can't make it do anything else. I did see a 7i92_G540x2D.bit file which, well, I have a G540 so that sounds swell! But it reported back "wrong bitfile destination device 6slx9tqg144 should be xcgslx9" Which, well, the board does have a Spartan xcgslx9 on it. I checked all the .bit files here, they all have "6slx9tqg144" in the header, I googled that and the number's somehow related to Spartan but it doesn't look like a part number.

Am I correct that the .bit file gets burned onto the FPGA? Will PNCConfig autodetect that start displaying a 7i92 option somehow? I may try the Windows Utility for it, not sure why, but it can't hurt.

Any idea? I Googled this for awhile and sure can't find much on making them work. I went through the manual and don't quite get why and how the firmware is separate from the LinuxCNC. Or does a LinuxCNC 7i92 config not even exist yet??

What version of linuxcnc do you have?

The mesaflash problem is a bug in older mesaflash versions, the released version of linuxcnc 2.7
should have the fixed version.

AFAIK pncconf does not support any Ethernet cards, so you will probably have to create your own hal/ini files
or use pncconf created files for existing cards and change the names/ driver load lines to make them match
your cardname and driver options

Here is an example 7I92 configuration file set, you can look at these files and see what
7I92 specific changes are needed in pncconf created file set for a say a 5I25 to make it work with a 7I92



freeby.mesanet.com/7i92step.zip

Thanks!

I have the LinuxCNC 2.7.0 release. .

I downloaded the Mesaflash utility off Mesa's website. Where is it in the LinuxCNC distribution?

Where do I put the .hal and .ini files?

You should use the mesaflash that comes with 2.7

hal and ini files go in ~/linuxcnc/configs/yourmachinenamehere/

I couldn't find mesaflash IN the LinuxCNC 2.7.0 distribution, but I got the "latest" from GitHub:

github.com/micges/mesaflash

But there's no .bit files with that. I used the other .bit files from Mesa's Support... the problem repeated.

I put that .hal/.ini file in, and started LinuxCNC, but it just gave an error and failed to load with a big text dumpfile. Any ideas?

I couldn't find mesaflash IN the LinuxCNC 2.7.0 distribution, but I got the "latest" from GitHub:

github.com/micges/mesaflash

But there's no .bit files with that. I used the other .bit files from Mesa's Support... the problem repeated.

Just tried the latest mesaflash, it works fine:

I put that .hal/.ini file in, and started LinuxCNC, but it just gave an error and failed to load with a big text dumpfile. Any ideas?

No, not without a little bit more information... (like the error message)

Where did you get your 7i92_G540x2D.bit from?

7i92.zip from mesa

OK do me a solid and type "mesaflash --device 7i92 --verbose" and quote what it returns to you.

What position do the W5/W6 jumpers need to be in for this?

This is not bit file related, I suspect you are not running the latest mesaflash

If you compiled mesaflash from source did you do a:
after make?


The linuxcnc repository has been updated with the latest mesaflash as well
so
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mesaflash

should work also