6i25 (5i25) + 7i85s + 7i85s PNCconf problems and questions

Hello everyone.

As i continue on my endeavour to learn more about linuxcnc, i am finally starting on my real setup.

I have spent the last 6 hours researching and trying but i have come to a standstill.

I managed to find out googling and reading the forum that first of all the mesa 5i25 needs to get flashed with the correct firmware. It took me a serious amount of time to understand mesaflash and to be able to find the .zip file needed.

>>>>>>> For future users. The firmware of all possible mesa card combination is found on the website freeby.mesanet.com/ than go in the menu to >>anything i/o fpga cards >> find the 5i25 card and click >> software support. This will download a zip file to your computer. Extract that zip into any folder. Than go to that folder and rightclick and select >> Open Terminal Here and write following command in the command line:
and than
Secondly you have to copy all the files found in this .zip file to the correct location where PNCconf can find these files. So this is what i managed to find on forum and google. the map you need to copy to is found in /lib/firmware/hm2 and firstly you need to create a folder there for your downloaded files. Go to your terminal and go by means of cd.. or cd "foldername" to this folder and than type next you need to copy the files downloaded to this location do not forget the space between the . and the /lib.

Now upon opening PNCconf wizard i have the option to choose the 5i25 card and under firmware you will be able to select the combination of cards.

OK.... Till here i get it myself now. But here are my questions:
upon selecting firmware 5i25_7i85sx2 and click apply component changes. I get 2 new tabs I/O connector 2 and I/O connector 3. i select the first one. So how do i select here my 7i85s card? I see the ability to choose several cards under SSERIAL-P1-tx, but there is no 7i85s card. Same applies to connector 3.

How do i continue from here? Please some help...

PS: i will update this first post with everything i ask, till i have a complete manual for connecting a 5i25 and 2x 7i85 cards for future reference.

Normally you would do this:

run pncconf
select 5i25
select 7i85sx2 firmware
accept changes
then assign stepgens:
select P3 tab (the first 7I85S with stepgens 0..3 would normally be on P3= the DB25)
select unused stepgen 0
assign it to axis X
etc etc

Thx

But... Don't I need to get the correct card tabs next to these iO connections?

Because it's 2 db25 connectors going to the 2 7i85s cards. If for example I pick in the serial tx the 7i84 card I get extra tabs with the correct layout of that board.

No, there is no 7I85S specific information needed by pncconf other than the DB25 pinout
and number of modules and types (and that's all in the .xml file)

Ok,

Than I am still lost. How does it work from 72 X 2 pins to barely 34 pins on dB 25.

Could u do me a favour and just give me a concrete example for the X axis and 1 limit switch and encoder feedback. I will try than to manage from there and update my first post.

What is P3 you mentioned? I don't get following

select P3 tab (the first 7I85S with stepgens 0..3 would normally be on P3= the DB25)

(In total I have 9 limits switches to independent pins... X Y Y Z and A axis spindle control. Feedback from all axis and from spindle...)

P3 is the first I/O connector on the 5I25

If you run pncconf and select the stepgens and axis encoders it will generate a hal/ini file set for steppers
with encoder position checking , not encoder position feedback. If you want encoder position feedback
you will have to change the position feedback source for each axis (and change the tuning)