Ethercat HAL driver

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

Hi @Nico2017,

YES - I will create a quick guide until end of thia week. Do you already have an working Hal-config for ethercat (are you migrating from previous version)?

It took me weeks and several retries to get all steps together. Did you already have a look here?
forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3559...uxcnc-how-to-install

This was helpful but copying files around is not my style..
So, stay tuned

[hr]

This is my how-to guide on LinuxCNC 2.8 @ Debian 9 Stretch 64 Bit:
!! Before we start, please be adviced that I don't explain every single step in detail.
!! I assume that you are experienced linux user and you know what you are doing.
!! I don't want to discuss why I am installing this or that, and/or doing what I am doing.
!! If you think you can make this better, then simply do it and don't blame on me.
!!
!! Regarding network:
!! - Build-in wifi is used to connect to my network
!! - Lan-Port will be used as ethercat master
!! Ethercat components:
!! - 2x EK1100 (Laptop -> 1. inside cabinet -> 2. mounted on back of Z-axis gantry)
!! - 4x EL4071 (X-Y-Z-A) [A is needed for extruder in 3D-printer mode or rotary axis in mill-mode]
!! - 1x EL3202 (used to get temperature from extruder hotend)
!! - 2x EL1008
!! - 2x EL2008
!! - 1x EL6021 to control 2.2KW spindle (still under development)
!! Objective:
!! - We are using a HP8440P Laptop.
!! - Rather than using LinuxCNC as run in place setup, we are building ".deb"-files and apply them to the operating system.
!!
!! I would like to thank the guys from #linuxcnc-devel@irc.freenode.net - you guys are awesome B)
!! My special thanks are going to :woohoo:
!! - "rmu"
!! - "pcw_home"
!!

01. Get install media from link below and install it on your machine.
www.linuxcnc.org/testing-stretch-rtpreem...uspace-amd64-r13.iso
02. Perform basic setup of Operating System
- wifi config
- enable root account - change to user root - configure repository list (see wiki.debian.org/SourcesList ) - update operating system: - create "/install" directory (we will store some of install resources) - install some tools - create "/git" dir and initialize it - activate firewall - determine mac address of lan port - configure lan
"nano /etc/network/interfaces" "nano /etc/network/interfaces" - avoid wait time due to startup of network services
"nano /lib/systemd/system/networking.service" (change here "TimeoutStartSec=5min" to "TimeoutStartSec=1sec")
- install some reseources required for build process later on
03. Remove pre-installed linuxcnc
04. Setup LinuxCNC 2.8
05. Setup "ec-debianize"
06. Setup "LinuxCNC-Ethercat"
07. Further things to consider
- if you experience issues when starting linuxcnc (cpu high load), then try to change "BASE_PERIOD=0" within your ini-file (config of your machine)

08. .. this is know the part where I guess I can end this guide now.
.. further steps (setting up ethercat.xml, machine config, ... can be seen within the forum).
.. hope this helped you - thanks for reading.
.. please leave a comment whether you managed it to get your system running.

[hr]

Best Regards,
Ben

Thanks your for those explanations. I have linuxcnc and ethercat up and running but not the linuxcnc-ethercat part as everytime I try a simple config using lcec components it fails to start the configuration. I actually had follow the instructions on the provided link before but there was still an issue at the end.

However you indicate a manual modification during the linuxcnc-ethercat installion that I did not do so it might explain why I have been failling so far. nano /git/linuxcnc-ethercat/src/lcec_main.c (add here [#include "rtapi_mutex.h"] below [#include "rtapi_app.h"])

I will give it a try and le you know. Thanks a lot.

PS: edit, it is working now apparently thanks the manual modification that you indicated during the linuxcnc-ethercat installation. I can now make linuxcnc with ethercat working on either a 32bits or 64bits architecture on a debian rt kernel. This line to be added make it work either for 32 or 64bits.

Thanks again

Nicolas