Ethercat HAL driver

Does this page apply to the EtherCAT driver?

If so, it seems that I have to look for a specific network card and use maximum Linux kernel version of 3.4.

Hi @JKAVS,

as far as I understand the page shows you the network card which would present the best performance if compatible with the linux kernel as indicated onto those tabs for different version of the EtherCAT driver. However you could use the driver with an option called generic. EtherCAT should work but maybe not to the highest performance you could expect from the Ethernet hardware shown onto the page.

The page indicates:

Generic Ethernet Driver

Since version 1.5, there is a generic Ethernet driver among the native ones, that spans all Ethernet devices supported by the Linux kernel. Although it is not usable with realtime patches like RTAI (because it uses the lower network stack layers), it runs perfectly with realtime preemption.

So with realtime preemption you should not even have any issue, but I think you still have slower performance when using generic compared to the other ethernet card presented.

For the EtherLab driver installed through the sittner/ec-debianize method, the generic driver is specified by the DEVICE_MODULES="generic" instruction as in:

Identify your MAC address for the ethernet connexion linked to your Ethercat bus. To do so you can use

sudo gedit /etc/default/ethercat

then modify the MASTER0_DEVICE="" to MASTER0_DEVICE="MACADRESS" with MACADRESS the value obtain with ifconfig. Also change DEVICE_MODULES="" to DEVICE_MODULES="generic" then save.

(see post forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3559...tall?start=30#135811 for full installation process.)

It is also good practise to keep an eye on hg.code.sf.net/p/etherlabmaster/code as this shows you the Ethercat master update installed with the sittner/ec-debianize method. I had some issue with one version installed (drop in the master slave communication) and an update was posted some day and re installing corrected my issue.

I hope this helps.
Nicolas

hi guys i just added the EL3351 module, as always the basics to make it work,
for you players!


Greeting
Chimeno

Hawkeye wrote: 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

Code:

sudo passwd root

- change to user root

Code:

su - root

- configure repository list (see wiki.debian.org/SourcesList )

Code:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

- update operating system:

Code:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt autoremove

- create "/install" directory (we will store some of install resources)

Code:

mkdir /install cd /install

- install some tools

Code:

apt-get install geany \ ufw \ clamav \ clamtk \ git \ curl \ mercurial \ htop \ mplayer \ net-tools

- create "/git" dir and initialize it

Code:

mkdir /git cd /git git init

- activate firewall

Code:

systemctl start ufw systemctl enable ufw ufw enable

- determine mac address of lan port

Code:

ip link show

- configure lan
"nano /etc/network/interfaces"

Code:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). source /etc/network/interfaces.d/* # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback allow-hotplug eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

"nano /etc/network/interfaces"

Code:

auto lo iface lo inet loopback allow-hotplug eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

- 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

Code:

apt-get install docbook-xsl \ dvipng \ graphviz \ groff \ inkscape \ python-lxml \ source-highlight \ texlive-extra-utils \ texlive-font-utils \ texlive-fonts-recommended \ texlive-latex-recommended \ w3c-linkchecker \ xsltproc \ asciidoc-dblatex \ python-dev \ libxmu-dev \ libglu1-mesa-dev \ libgl1-mesa-dev apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev \ gettext \ intltool \ autoconf \ libboost-python-dev \ netcat \ libmodbus-dev \ libusb-1.0-0-dev \ yapps2 \ tcl8.6-dev \ tk8.6-dev \ libreadline-gplv2-dev \ asciidoc \ devscripts \ build-essential \ lintian \ texlive-lang-cyrillic \ texlive-lang-french \ texlive-lang-german \ texlive-lang-polish \ texlive-lang-spanish \ devscripts \ build-essential \ quilt

03. Remove pre-installed linuxcnc

Code:

apt-get purge linuxcnc-doc-en linuxcnc-uspace-dev linuxcnc-uspace

04. Setup LinuxCNC 2.8

Code:

cd /git git clone git://github.com/linuxcnc/linuxcnc.git linuxcnc-dev cd linuxcnc-dev/debian ./configure uspace cd .. dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc cd /git apt install ./linuxcnc-doc-en_2.8.0~pre1_all.deb apt install ./linuxcnc-uspace_2.8.0~pre1_amd64.deb apt install ./linuxcnc-uspace-dev_2.8.0~pre1_amd64.deb mkdir /git/linuxcnc-dev/deb/ mv linuxcnc_* /git/linuxcnc-dev/deb/ mv *.deb /git/linuxcnc-dev/deb/ reboot

05. Setup "ec-debianize"

Code:

cd /git git clone https://github.com/sittner/ec-debianize ec-debianize ./get_source.sh cd etherlabmaster dpkg-checkbuilddeps dpkg-buildpackage (the output error "failed to sign .dsc file" is no issue) sudo dpkg -i /git/ec-debianize/etherlabmaster_1.5.2+20180317hg9e65f7-2_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i /git/ec-debianize/etherlabmaster-dev_1.5.2+20180317hg9e65f7-2_amd64.deb nano /etc/default/ethercat (change mac-address [MASTER0_DEVICE=""] e.g. [MASTER0_DEVICE="11:22:33:44:55:66"]) nano /etc/default/ethercat (change [DEVICE_MODULES=""] to [DEVICE_MODULES="generic"]) sudo update-ethercat-config usermod -a -G ethercat linuxcnc reboot

06. Setup "LinuxCNC-Ethercat"

Code:

cd /git git clone http://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat.git linuxcnc-ethercat" nano /git/linuxcnc-ethercat/src/lcec_main.c (add here [#include "rtapi_mutex.h"] below [#include "rtapi_app.h"]) cd /git/linuxcnc-ethercat make -j4 make install sudo make install

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

Hello @Hawkeye

I wonder if you can share your EL6021 code to see how you have programmed it, thank you very much
Chimeno

Hi Chimeno,

Thanks for your guide. The step for installing linuxcnc as .deb is interesting.

The fastest way for new users is to download & install debian 10 ethercat iso : github.com/grotius-cnc/LINUX_RTOS
This saves hours of time.

Your step 8 is already done inside the iso.

Hello @Grotius

Sorry, I did not explain myself well, the guide is not mine, I only ask how the EL6021 device has been programmed, I am not very clear how I should approach it.

Greeting
Chimeno