Ethercat HAL driver

Hi,
I installed GROTIUS' image and was supprised, that everything worked out of the box.
I did a , wrote a small xml with the EL1008, EL2008, EL2521 and EL 7041-1000 and that was it - wow! Thank you all for the hours of work saved.

My next step is to add a Lenze 8400 Frequency Inverter and a Kollmorgen AKD.
I have the vendors ESI-XMLs and found this tutorial, to create a xml for the generic driver: docs.google.com/document/d/1GiB065ZIAaoM...xGQl2X9DM9-THNM/edit

Is this still the way to go or did someone write a script in the meantime?
Is there a place/repository to share config files?

I am gradually working my way forward in this thread. Can someone recommend a website/tutorials where all the knowledge is a bit more condensed? Browsing through 100s of posts does not seem to be the most effectiv way to get information

Thank you all for all for all the effort you put into this project, that allows me to start so quickly!

Cheers
Jan

Hi @Automata ;

I am trying to integrate with A5B drivers, but i couldnt manage it. While i was searching forum i saw your post.

On my system; when i try to enable the motors, drivers give SyncManager 2/3 error.

On Etherlab side i am seeing every driver as ethercat slave and i can make all of them Servo Enable by etherlab commands via Control words (6040 6 and then 15). It means ethercat is working well, but i have problems with servo driver Sync parameters.

I will be very happy if you can send me Parameter / Object file of one of your Driver so i can check.

Thank you
Gokhan

@Grotius

Excellent job... I do not see anything to add at the moment, as you have everything covered. It definitely saves a ton of time compared to building. Very happy that you put this together and posted. I was working on doing a similar setup, but you have a better ISO than what I was doing.


I definitely want the EL-T1000 slave. That would complete my Skynet deployment!!!

Robert

@JanMrlth,

"Is there a place/repository to share config files?"
The only place that I am aware of is here on the LinuxCNC forum or at GitHub. "Tommylight" may know somewhere else, but for LCNC EtherCAT I would say only here and GitHub. If you go to Sasha Ittners Git page, there are a few example configs, but not a repository.


"I am gradually working my way forward in this thread. Can someone recommend a website/tutorials where all the knowledge is a bit more condensed? Browsing through 100s of posts does not seem to be the most effectiv way to get information "
This is one problem since it is open source and everyone here is volunteers. There is not really a good specific place to just go read one page after another to figure things out. The closest to that would be reading the integrator manual and the users manual. Over the years I have had the same problem you are facing which is trying to piece together multiple post to answer one question. Plus some post are really old and pertain to that version of LCNC and may not even be relevant to the version you may be using. This can be a huge problem at times when you can't find the answer you need for your version.

The one thing that is positive and helps is there is super dedicated people on here such as Tommylight, PCW, andypugh, and few others not mentioned that really know what they are doing. There are many others that can help, but only a few that can help with EtherCAT... Chimeno and Grotius are the main guy's to get with on EtherCAT as they have helped me in the past with problems.

Hope this helps.
Robert

So, I have been reading a lot and was able to write a xml-config for my AKD-Drive. What I have learned, I tried to put into this (German) video:


One Question:
www.etherlab.org/download/ethercat/ethercat-1.5.2.pdf say on page 23:

It is not possible to use [the generic driver] in-kernel realtime extensions like RTAI with the generic driver, because the network stack code uses dynamic memory allocations and other things, that could cause the system to freeze in realtime context.

Do I need a 'real' driver to be able to run a axis in real time? How much slower is the generic driver?

Hi,

I remember a document where the timing details where provided.
You see, it's almost equal between userspace and kernelspace.



It's true you can not mix rtai (.ko) with the generic (.so) driver.

How much slower is the generic driver?
I think it's 2-5 nanosec slower if you take the 4 ecrt steps together.