First time EMC2 user need help

Hi! again,

Being a newb I will ask a newb question...............I am unsure what you mean by look at the files. I am looking at them but looking and knowing waht to do are two things:(

May I ask for a bit more info on what you want me to do other than try the pin out changes?

tks

yes of course , my mistake ...it is easy to forget the new user ,,,, ask all the questions it is the way to learn ...

ok here we go ..
open your hal file in gedit ( i find gedit is the easyiest to use graphics wise ) but any preference you have is fine

find in the file the following
setp stepgen.0.steplen 1
setp stepgen.0.stepspace 1
setp stepgen.0.dirhold 215000
setp stepgen.0.dirsetup 215000

there is a section for each axis , axis are classed as 0 through 3 ( or higher) and usualy relate to x y z etc )
as you can see your dirhold is set to 215000 which is a long period time

try changing and edit the above to
setp stepgen.0.steplen 1
setp stepgen.0.stepspace 0
setp stepgen.0.dirhold 35000
setp stepgen.0.dirsetup 35000

all parameters are set in editable txt files for ease ( at least the ones you can touch )
in fact most people once the get to grips with linuxcnc do not use the wizards at all , and hand edit a configuration

the configurations are basicly split into to files you have found i.e hal and ini

hope this helps , also search the wiki , and the online documentations can help too ..

see how you get on ...

Dave

Good day again,

So I have tried everything and still no change but we have been testing each pin coming out of the parallel port and here is what we found with a DMM on volts:

Pin 1: 5v
Pin 2: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 3: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 4: 5v
pin 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16: 5v
Pin 17: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25: Ground

Is this weird? Is my parallel card on drugs?

This is always this way whether I change pin set up in EMC2. The card is speaking to the TB6560 board during flash up since you can hear the relay activate but I believe part of the problem is what I described.

Ideas?

tks

andypugh wrote:

gmaranda wrote:

Pin 1: 5v
Pin 2: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 3: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 4: 5v
pin 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16: 5v
Pin 17: nothing (0.04V)
Pin 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25: Ground
Is this weird?

It's not very wierd. 1 to 9 are outputs, and will be low. Except for pin 1, which is inverted.
Pins 10 to 17 are Inputs, and will be pulled high internally.
So, only pins 4 and 17 are doing anything unusual.

Are you absolutely sure you have the right IO port address for the parallel port?

What does cat /proc/ioports say?

I will check the ports again but we did it a few times so I am pretty sure that is what they are.

Being new to linux do you mind expanding on cat/proc/ioports? And how do I get to them and what do I look for?

tks again

andypugh wrote:

gmaranda wrote:

Being new to linux do you mind expanding on cat/proc/ioports?

Open a terminal and type "cat /proc/ioports"

If you read the list you ought to see the parallel port, and its base address.
This is rather like "lspci" but it finds ports that are not on the PCI bus too.

Will do tks.

Now that I think of it is there something that needs to be specified in CMOS? I did not have a parallel port card in the computer so I had to install one which led me to be believe that I may need to adjust something......

tks

Remember me=newbie

Here is what happened, I have a computer and I installed the live CD on it with nothing else so it is a stand alone etc.

when I went to plug the TB6560 card I realized that I did not have a parallel card on my computer so I bought one and installed it. Turned on the computer and I have been trying to make this thing work ever since.

remember me=linuxcnc newbie

tks