Help needed to get my 7i76E + 7i85S + 7i73 on my mill going.

Hi Todd,

Only encoders for X/T/Z/A on 7i85S.
I was assuming that this was the needed change but I was searching for this in pncconf and there you can not change number of encoders.

I'm not sure how good the support for the Ethernet Mesa cards is in PNCconf. (I'm not sure if PNCconf can detect any daughter cards used on a 7i76E, and it can't read the firmware.)

It can surely be improved, what I most dislike is the fact that it over writes previous edits. High on my wanted list is to have pncconf to read HAL and INI and just add what is changed. Hopefully we will get this someday.

There is too much frustration for a newbie to get things working without having to do it all over again after a visit into pncconf.

But I will give kudos to all of you guys that help us get things working with our machines = very much appreciated!

As we say in Sweden = No one mentioned nobody forgotten.

Todd wrote:

You also need to change the number of encoders in this line to 5 (maybe 6):

loadrt hm2_eth board_ip="10.10.10.10" config="firmware=hm2/7i76/7i76e.BIT num_encoders=1 num_pwmgens=0 num_stepgens=5 sserial_port_0=21xxxx"

to

loadrt hm2_eth board_ip="10.10.10.10" config="firmware=hm2/7i76/7i76e.BIT num_encoders=5 num_pwmgens=0 num_stepgens=5 sserial_port_0=21xxxx"

Are you only using the encoders on the 7i85S? If you are using any of it's other outputs (stepgens, PWMgens, or SmartSerial port) you have to add that info as well.

This edit is not the correct way as I get error message saying only 1 encoder.
So question still remains how to setup 7i85S

I am back to settings before in HAL but still have to get INI back as it was. Must learn to make backups

Cheers
Bengt

Does your 7i76E have the right firmware loaded for use with the 7i85S?

I don't remember seeing if you installed it with Mesaflash?

Well when ordering boards together I assume that the correct firmware is loaded and not to have to fiddle around with Mesaflash.

So now to do what next? What is the correct firmware and how to do this?

Not barking at you Todd!

The firmware for a 7I76E with a added 7I85S is

7i76e_7i76x1_7i85sx1D.bit

This is included in the support software zip file at www.mesanet.com or the store

For mesaflash, I'm not sure if your version of LinuxCNC has the right pointers to be able to

If the above does not work, I would just fetch the source from github and build it

OK, installed Mesaflash, downloaded .zip and packed up the bitfile.

So now >> what next? What is the exact syntax to use here?

Have been looking around to find some info and found this.

sudo mesaflash --device 7i76e --addr 10.10.10.10 --write 7i76e_7i76x1_7i85sx1D.bit

Is this the correct way with write? or is program?

Looks like all *write* was the correct syntax = no errors and both boards with new firmware.

Q1:
So now I assume that encoder ppr values has to be entered somewhere

Q2
Can one of these encoder inputs be used as spindle encoder as TB3 pins 13/14 are obviously busted
or is possible to use other inputs for index pulse on 7i76e?