First Machine, can't get 6i25 to drive CL57Y/CL86Y

I've been working on a large format gantry cnc for a few months now and while I have plenty of mechanical design experience and a decent bit of controls, LinuxCNC and this style of hardware is well outside of my (current) comfort zone. I've got my HAL/ini files loading into LinuxCNC without error, and am starting to get the hang of syntax and method for this kind of machine control, but I've got some pretty glaring rookie issues left to sort. 

I can power up the mesa board and actuate my steppers with mechanical switches on the 5v and 0v outputs, so my machine wiring is functional and my driver is not fried or otherwise inoperable. I am using 5v on PU+ for power input and then grounding PU- on my z axis stepgen on pin 7, starting the pin count from 0. I have inverted the pin with setp   hm2_5i25.0.gpio.007.invert_output true in my hal and the pin reads 5V when idle so I think I have everything right up to that point. However, nothing moves when homing or jogging a joint, and when I let the home run I see no activity with a multimeter on the pin. I feel like I am doing something dumb and unless I can find a solution I'll go get some daughter cards for the 6i25. For several reasons none of the standard offering quite fit my needs but I can make some combination work. 

Any advice? I've called into Mesa twice and have been able to make a lot of headway from the info gained there to even get to this point but this is where I am starting to stumble. I feel like I am missing something on timing or tuning obvious in retrospect. Files attached.

What firmware are you using?

sudo mesaflash --device 5i25 --readhmid

Will print the pinout of the currently installed firmware

( assuming you are using the 5abob firmware, DB25 pin 7 is stepgen 2 DIR, not STEP )
 

2.9.7, Preempt rt ISO

Stepper online, no clones.

axis

The drivers, CLXX's no daughters.

I think the problem being between the 6i25 and the drivers is probable.

I tried some weak oscilloscopes. Nothing better than AC multimeters, it just read gibberish. I really should get a good one as a work expense. Something that can ID freq bands. I could go that route if this SHOULD work.

I believe it's Bob if I did the flash right. I'm still not 100% on how all these talk and write to one another. I'll run the readhmid after I am done making dinner.

I'm not sure if this nomenclature starts at 0 or 1. It's physically the 8th pin starting from 1 which is how I understand DB25 to be counted by, but the config starts joints from 0 and I'm not sure how to describe the count due to that.

On the 6I25/5I25 mesaflash lists DB25 pin numbers

DB25 connectors are numbered:

1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13
  14  15  16  17  18 19  20  21  22    23     24    25

Also you don't need to use GPIO to invert step or dir pins, there are aliased names like:

hm2_5i25.0.stepgen.00.direction.invert_output

hm2_5i25.0.stepgen.00.step.invert_output



 

I read a few posts that you said on this but it failed to compile when launching linuxcnc when I used that stepgen/invert nomenclature. Past posts included 1 or TRUE in the definition, I will try the above verbatim.