Startup Error + Axis limit configuration

Perhaps to clarify a few things.
Are you running 8.04 or 10.04?
How did you install / upgrade?
Did you have a working configuration on this computer in the past, if so step by step what you did to arrive where you are now.
Have you tried any of the sample configurations, if so do any of them work?
What were the results of the latency test?

Rick G

I can't find any Hyperthreading options in BIOS.

Heres what I got from "uname -r":
2.6.32-122-rtai

What I know, I havent updated anything that has to do with the operating system or kernel or anything like that, only the external programs. I used the upgrade guide on LinuxCNC to update to 2.5.1 (add source, run apt-get update / upgrade) and it all updated itself.
Since my normal config didn't start after the update, I made a new one with the wizard (all same settings as before what I know) and its that one I'm getting the RTAPI error with.

Latency test shows (as a matrix)
1003032 6995 995043
34777 10296 25494

Everything ran fine before the program update, and now I get the RTAPI error, even with the same BASE_PERIOD value as before.

I'm running ubuntu "10.04 LTS"

Bump. Anyone?

Just for the heck of it have you tried increasing the base period by a large factor to see if the error goes away?
Did any of the updates have to do with your video driver?
There seems to be some problems with delays on the forum, mine keeps timing out, maybe the same for others.

Rick G

Do you have room on your hard disk to do a new separate partition and fresh install to test?

Rick G

Rick G wrote:

Just for the heck of it have you tried increasing the base period by a large factor to see if the error goes away?
Did any of the updates have to do with your video driver?
There seems to be some problems with delays on the forum, mine keeps timing out, maybe the same for others.

Rick G

Before I tried increasing by a factor of 2-4...nothing, but now I tried 10 and the error went away! So I lowered it to find the critical point and found it around a BASE_PERIOD value of around 150000, where 25000 worked fine before...!

I guess thats progress but I still can't do anything in LinuxCNC, it starts fine now but I can't jog, can't run gcode and so on, can't do anything. When I try to jog I can hear something happend, but it dosent move, its like its taking a microstep or something, hardly visible.

Even though:
-I am running the "continuous" mode, and this worked before.
-The steppers run fine when I test them in the stepconfig "Test this axis" program.

(The steppers are active (holding torque) and the estop is not active.)

What I know, none of the updates had to do with the graphics.
Rick G wrote:

Do you have room on your hard disk to do a new separate partition and fresh install to test?

Rick G

No I dont, but I do have another computer I could install ubuntu on and try.

BigJohnT wrote

When you monitor the motion.servo-overruns parameter in a watch window does it just happen once or a bunch of times?

John

Does what happend a bunch of times?
When I monitor motion.servo-overruns it shows "0" all the time.

-The steppers run fine when I test them in the stepconfig "Test this axis" program.

You might want to look here...
linuxcnc.org/emc2/emc2/index.php/english...ew&catid=21&id=10018

However this does not explain while base period would change or why a working config no longer works.

You might try creating a new config using the new slower base period and reducing the velocities of all the axis to test.

Rick G

BigJohnT wrote

Each time a servo period overruns by some mystery amount motion.servo-overruns will increment. When you set your base period back does motion.servo-overruns increment a bunch of times?

John

Ok I see, the thing is - when I monitor the value its 0 all the time, even with the old problematic BASE_PERIOD value.

Rick G wrote:

-The steppers run fine when I test them in the stepconfig "Test this axis" program.

You might want to look here...
linuxcnc.org/emc2/emc2/index.php/english...ew&catid=21&id=10018

However this does not explain while base period would change or why a working config no longer works.

You might try creating a new config using the new slower base period and reducing the velocities of all the axis to test.

Rick G

Eureka!
While playing around with the different properties in the setup I got the steppers to run again, finally. But I noticed a weird thing while running a couple of g-code programs that I have not had before - I use 4steppers on 3axis, the Y axis has 2 steppers and on higher speeds than >3000mm/min one of those steppers loose steps! This has as I said never happened before, I was able to run quite a lot faster without losing any steps before, so I'm guessing it has to do with some kind of software parameter.

I also can't understand to setup the coordinate system properly with LinuxCNC, on the X-axis as a example, I would like to have 0-649 (mm), so I put "Table travel = "0" to "649" in the setup.
But when I run the program for some reason I get the intervall "-374,240" to "274,761" which makes 649,001 (374,240+274,761), so the length is good, but I want them to be positive and start at zero.