Successful stepconf user buys Mesa5i25 wants to use experience in pncconf. How??

That goes back to your earlier comment that a pin can be "disabled" and it will revert to a GPIO pin? (all of which, save pin17, are of that type)

Yes, any pin that has no enabled special function reverts to GPIO
Special inputs (like encoder inputs) do not interfere with using the pins as
GP inputs even if enabled, but you cannot change them to outputs unless
you disable the special function.

I'm not sophisticated enough, or dumb-lucky enough, to rely on the slowness of a filter. I really need to put a PWMgen on pin 17, for the sake of future transparency too.

If software PWM worked on your stepconf created configuration, it will also work on the 5I25, though it might require a base thread

"I thought I saw" (old age) that a BIT file could be generated from a PIN (or other text) file, but the only reference I see now is to a sophisticated use of Xilinx (FPGA) "ISE Design Suite". (A PIN-to-BIT parser would have to be pretty sophisticated too I guess.) Is that the only way?

Yes, recompiling the bit file is the only way to change a special function pinout or types/numbers of included modules

freeby.mesanet.com/5i25_jp3163x2d.bit

Whoa!!! This looks like the Gold Buzzer!

I never even thought a firmware already customized for the JP-3153B might exist, so never looked!

[Unfortunately, when I just searched, nothing came back, and freeby.mesanet.com/ was not a list of files I expected.]

I'm really looking forward to flashing this. Thank you.

I understand that this will make the 5i25 and the JP-3163B controller understand each other, and my task is now reduced to assuring that the INI and HAL files underlying PathPilot assure a similar understanding between PP and the Mesa.

clunc wrote: Whoa!!! This looks like the Gold Buzzer!
I never even thought a firmware already customized for the JP-3153B might exist, so never looked!.

I suspect that it didn't exist until PCW made it for you just then

Andy,

Thank you for pointing that out. I was trying to say that although I didn't do due diligence (never occurred to me!) in looking for a BIT file, when I did, finally, think of it--prompted by Peter's gift, I couldn't find one. (I guess I was hoping that I would learn that, far from what kind of a generous character PCW is, that rather, oh, by the way, "there's actually a central location for BIT files for all the weird, one-of, CNC controllers ever brought to market." Of the two, I'm happier to thank Peter for going to the trouble. And I do thank you, Peter; humbled here.)

Now I have to report what I hadn't foreseen: I've been waved off of using a non-Tormach firmware in the 5i25, and also off of editing "stock Tormach INI and HAL files," but ordered instead to "effect all" by rewiring the non-Tormach CNC, "to respond like a Tormach machine."

I am deep enough into the project to realize that that's bollocks, as the great bard once put it. In fact, to prove it, I made some "trivial" changes to the Tormach HAL (choosing inverted forms of pins) to get limit switches working that would have cost a lot more time in "rewiring." It's nonsense to hold that ALL ARBITRARILY DESIGNED NON-TORMACH MACHINES, NO MATTER THE TECHNOLOGY THEY ADOPT, CAN BE 'REWIRED' TO EMULATE A TORMACH MACHINE.

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but...

Why name the files G540 and G540x2 if they don't match a G540 ?

No more than 4 stepgens can be used with a G540. There are 4 inputs, 1 e-stop input, 2 outputs, a spindle PWM, and a charge-pump.

But the G540 bit file doesn't represent this at all.

What does not match?

The extra stepgen is for driving the chargepump
The PWM is for the G540 spindle PWM
Any other pin can be used in any direction as GPIO