mesa 7i76 configuring a spindle encoder

Starting from scratch isn't the way, this shouldn't be this difficult.
(And, to an extent, learning what these errors mean and how to fix them is useful)
What error do you get if you comment out the offending line?

Clive wrote:

Ok Andy commented out ###loadrt lowpass names=lowpass.spindle.gain

That wasn't the line I was suggesting you comment out. The "Offending line" is given in the error report, line 190 of the file "Myford_Lathe.hal"

Some HAL background.

When you loadrt lowpass you get the pins and parameters listed here:
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/man/man9/lowpass.9.html
So, typically lowpass.0.gain, lowpass.0.in etc.

If you use names= then the pins get new names. If you use "names = lowpass.spindle.gain" then the pins/parameters are lowpass.spindle.gain.gain and lowpass.spindle.gain.in and so on.

What you need is "loadrt lowpass names=lowpass.spindle"

You have tried to loadrt the lowpass component twice, with two different names

What is the background here? how did you end up with this file which has all the net commands but none of the loadrt commands?

loadrt abs names=abs.spindle