How to. 2 or more motors on one axis. Gantry

thank you joel for making a go of making the impenetrable accessible to people such as myself. im wondering if you might be able to offer some insight into editing my own HAL file. i am unfortunately forced into using a 7I96S which is proving slightly harder to use as only the mesaCT configuration wizard seems to provide help with it. consequently i am completely lost as my own HAL file is not all that recognizable compared to your examples.

i am specifically lost at the assigning pin stage as quite simply im not even sure which lines are even assigning pins to begin with. that being said i cant verify my editing of rest of the file is accurate without being able to assign said pins for testing so its very possible im making errors on that front too.  joint 2 and join 3 of my file represent the Y0 and Y1 motors as it where of this attempt. i simply copyied joint2 whole sale and change any joint 2 reference to joint 3. i had hoped that my pin assignment was somehow burried within and thus would be covered by this as i cant seem to find any direct pin maping. 

ive been staring at this for so long now everything is all starting to swirl so if any of our more seasoned config aficionados can take a look at the attached hal and assist in my understanding of what needs to be done i would be most gratefull.


 

It might be useful to add the ini file as well

For another example configuration, there is no reason you cannot use a pncconf setup for a 7I96 with a a 7I96S (just replace 7I96 with 7I96S in the hal/ini files)

I was under the impression that they used different FPGA's? Which made me think i had best not use anything other than something that supported the 7I96s exactly.

All Hostmot2 cards are basically interchangeable at the hal level
Though newer cards may have features not supported by older
versions of LinuxCNC

This means that HAL/INI files are portable between almost any Mesa FPGA card type
by just changing the card name (and driver name/config line if the card interface
is different)

Note that you must not attempt to load firmware that is not specific to the
exact card.

Ah, I think I may have been getting some amount of confusion concerning the firmware flashing as I had assumed that my configuring of the HAL/INI file via the mesaCT was also making necessary changes for these change to work on the card by altering the firmware, meaning I felt I had to flash the firmware each time I made a change.

I'm guessing the only situation I would be making alteration to the firmware is if it was changing core functionality of pins.