Test LinuxCNC without motors and encoders connected

Ah yes, best to list all the actual pin names and use those:

halcmd show pin > all_linuxcnc_pins

I'm very happy.

I received my Mesa card yesterday, and after spending 8 hours I'm able to write a working Classicladder program, start a spindel and handle the rotation speed, Output on the analog port to drive the servo drivers (-10V/+10V) ...
This is the first time I've done this.. so there is hope for everybody who wants to jump in the LinuxCNC world.
If I can get it work, everybody should

I'm just a little afraid to connect the servo drivers and the servos.. because I hardly know what a servo motor is And I don't even mention the PID tuning in LinuxCNC!!

My goal is to replace an old CNC controller on a Biesse Rover 18 by LinuxCNC.

Search for "servo tuning detailed how to" there is a lot of info of wiring procedures and testing and precautions when setting up Mesa 7i77 with servo drives .

Peterdeleu wrote: I'm very happy.

I received my Mesa card yesterday, and after spending 8 hours I'm able to write a working Classicladder program, start a spindel and handle the rotation speed, Output on the analog port to drive the servo drivers (-10V/+10V) ...
This is the first time I've done this.. so there is hope for everybody who wants to jump in the LinuxCNC world.
If I can get it work, everybody should

I'm just a little afraid to connect the servo drivers and the servos.. because I hardly know what a servo motor is And I don't even mention the PID tuning in LinuxCNC!!

My goal is to replace an old CNC controller on a Biesse Rover 18 by LinuxCNC.

I have done a few Biesse Rovers. I have a Biesse Rover 346 running linuxcnc. they are solid machines.

Biesse has a pre loop so when you press the green button a green light goes on. Tie that into your linuxcnc estop before you enable the drives. has to go both ways in and out so if you lose that loop,(green lite goes out) it should fire estop in linuxcnc. Same goes the other way, estop in linuxcnc breaks that loop. Let me know if you need help with that.

Energize a relay with machine-is-on, take contacts of that relay and enable your drives.
Get limit and home switches wired

Then your good to go, after wiring the drives to the 7i77. (+-10, encoders)

All the wiring (IO, encoders, .. ) to the current controller is done via SUB-D connectors.
I've buyed a couple of these. This way I don't have to cut the connectors.
And I was aware of the E-stop loop. I will connect these to the Mesa.
Same for all the other IO's. The outputs are all connected via relaiscards, and the inputs via optocouplers. (see picture) to the controller.
That will make the job easier.
But I guess I will need more support from this forum once I'll start the real work

I'm little bit confused now.

I've tried to read a lot about "tuning the servo's".
In the past I tough that this has to be done on the servo drive.
In the beginning I've planned to replace the servo drives and motors by Clearpath servo's. The reason for this was because Clearpath can "tune" themselves. And that was maybe an expensive way to solve my fear, but probably not the best way.
Now I read a lot about PID tuning in LinuxCNC. I don't say that I know what PID tuning is, but it looks like the tuning has to be done in LinuxCNC and not on the drives. Maybe this will be more clear when I actually connect the drives to LinuxCNC and have more hands-on experience.
But anyway, I would like to thank everybody here to support the LinuxCNC dummies". Without them it would be a nightmare .