Ethercat HAL driver

Got it working.

Have used a prime time linuxcnc verision of the past. 2.6. Thanks to Andy for providing a fast iso cd adres on the forum in other thread. forum.linuxcnc.org/38-general-linuxcnc-q...2-6-live-cd-download
the iso cd of 2.6 debian linuxcnc
I grabbed a new pc and installed the iso cd, after the cd, only used this for core installation ethercat :





So now i have some ehtercat working after 5 hours on a old linuxcnc version, problably 32 bit.
But i was started with c code on 64 bit linuxcnc system.
This was compiling but i have to know more about c coding. But first test tonight is so far so good.
The reverse engineering will take some time. I will now first investegate the real time lsec component.
On my 64 bit system the etercat connection is good. But reading value's with a custom component is until now the bottleneck.
Maybe time will bring me to next level.

Hello Grotius,
Ohh that's good, it's exciting when you do the first tests and it starts to work something. It's a good start.

regards
Chimeno

Hi, i have a little Ethercat project update for 64 bit linuxcnc systems.

It's a hard case. My c program language must be improved...
But there is every day a little progress.

Next thing to do is setting an digital output outside of linuxcnc. When this succeed i will try to include hal.h.

.

Hello Grotius,

looks like you are already have a great progress on porting ethercat-driver to 64bit environment. As your last post is already a couple days old, did you already had the chance to test other modules like EL7041 using your modifications?

Would you suggest to start the installation of debian on a clean stock image rather than modifing the already existing debian9 iso-file you mentioned above?

Best Regards,
Ben

Hello,

i want to retrofit a deckel fp4a with Beckhoff, granite devices Argon servo driver and stock servos.
is it possible to controll all devices over ethercat or had someone experience with it ?.

i already worked with beckhoff ethercat I/O´s and Linuxcnc this is not the problem.

i have already found a tutorial with Argon drivers and Linuxcnc but without ethercat.

Please correct me if iam thinking wrong but technically should comunicate etherything over ethercat with linuxcnc ?

Best Regards
Thomas G.

@Hawkeye,

I have ordered 2 extra Beckhoff component's. One is for 5v high speed output, this for testing stepper motor's drives and motors relating to the parport LTP1 max rpm's. To measure the real rpm's output difference i can make a conclusion.
Second Beckhoff component is 0-10 volt analog input, for testing torch height control with Beckhoff.

Your EL7041 is a stepper motor driver. This will work, but i think they are expensive, also they are limitied to 8000 steps / rev.
I use 10.000. Then you can use better an ordnary stepper driver with 80volts, you have more power also. 30 volt's up. And less
cost's. But it's nice to see everything in one din row.

The ethercat is currently for me only working outside Linuxcnc. I am looking to find a solution. Every day i spent a lot of time to this issue, and every day i come closer to a solution. One solution can be to solve the makefile from Sascha to 64 bit.
Then this github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat wil install on 64 bit. I get very far, even i get out an .so file. But there are problem's i have to solve to make this happen without problem's.

Second way is to make a c coded glue module for Linuxcnc. It's only possible with component's, for example Hostmot2 is such a component. What i am learning now is to make command's for the Real Time Api. RTapi. My c program language has to improve, otherwise i get no solution.

I have installed the 32 bit version of ethercat 2 times. I work's directly. But maybe my mistake, sometimes it was locking linux completely. It could be a configuration fault.

The Etercat outside of linuxcnc on 4.9.0-8-rt-amd64 is working perfectly. So now spent some time to integrate it. I have several idea's and tested, also several idea's on stock. Every day i come closer.

@CNC destoyer,
Look at "servo over ethercat", there are servo system's on 32 bit linuxcnc. Also on github.

When installing the github version on 64 bit i get this error :



The error is related to the line 19 in the realtime.mk file :
LDFLAGS += -Wl,-rpath,$(LIBDIR) -L$(LIBDIR) -llinuxcnchal -lethercat
The -lethercat is not found.....

Hello Grotius,

I am now in from of a debian-strech laptop and I am struggeling with the basic setup of ethercat. do you have a strait guide wo bring the ethercat-stack up and running?
When I try to build the sources I cloned with "hg clone hg.code.sf.net/p/etherlabmaster/code ethercat-hg" I am getting always the following error:
checking for kernel for e1000e driver... configure: error: kernel 4.9 not available for e1000e driver!

so far I tried:
hg clone hg.code.sf.net/p/etherlabmaster/code ethercat-hg
cd ethercat-hg
hg update stable-1.5
./bootstrap
#./configure --disable-8139too --enable-generic --enable-e1000e
./configure --disable-8139too --with-e1000e-kernel --enable-generic
make
make modules
sudo make install
sudo make modules_install
depmod


Best Regards and good night,
Ben

Hello,

Quick update:
Managed to bring up ethercat on my laptop. Needed to start
/etc/init.d/realtime and had to set within /etc/init.d/ethercat the driver to "generic". I had the same issue with /dev/Ethercat0 and solved it temporarily as already described within this Thread(s).
On shell I can see my ethercat devices using "ethcat slaves -v" now.
When I start Linuxcnc 3.8-pre now, it notifys me that my config needa Updates. Wheather or not I agree to update my config, the whole system freezes.

Any Idea?

Best Regards,
Ben

Update:

It's alive!
Works like a Charm!
Linuxcnc3.8 + debian stetch 64bit iso + ethercat components from Beckhoff

Hi @Hawkeye,

would you be able to summarize the different steps you went through to make it work.

Thank you,

Nicolas