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Stubborness pays off apparently. 
Managed to flash the mesa card using:
mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr 10.10.10.10 --write 7i96d_1pwm.bit
mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr 10.10.10.10 --reload

and then adding:
setp hm2_7i96.0.pwmgen.pwm_frequency 10000
setp   hm2_7i96.0.pwmgen.00.scale 1600 #max rpm
net spindle-output hm2_7i96.0.pwmgen.00.value
net spindle-enable hm2_7i96.0.pwmgen.00.enable
setp hm2_7i96.0.pwmgen.00.out0.invert_output true

Ontop of this I have a PWM to 0-10V module so step- of the pwmgen goes to the pwm module and then on to the VFD.
In the main hal file(if I remember correctly) I changed to 1 pwm gen and 4 stepgens.
I suspect this is the same result as selecting 7i96S and renaming it afterwards
Things seem to work now except VFD won't go into "gear", speed changes according to 'M3 Sxxx' commands if I manually ground FWD or REV on the vfd.

I can tell on the mesa card that it is switching output2 and 3 as it should, but something about my wiring must be off.
VFD ground is the same as the Mesa cards ground to make sure they're on the same level.
I'm guessing that maybe the lack of voltage difference could cause issues with SSR's or maybe I need a pullup resistor if the levels are possibly floating around a bit?


Will give 2.9.1 a try in the future! 

Use the raspberry pi image for 2.9.1 on the downloads page. There is nothing experimental about it. It uses the official Raspberry pi kernel and Debian Bookworm and linuxcnc 2.9.1

2.9.1 is in the process of being released so some parts of the website still need updating but the downloads page is solid. the image follow on from an installer I built which has been available on the forum here for a while.

If you cannot get mesact to work, what I would do is
run pncconf but select 7I96S instead of 7I96
This will allow you to setup the spindle PWM

To get a working configuration for a 7I96, you now just need to
change the card name in the ini file from 7i96s to 7i96

Yep, should've realized that way earlier, the clash of IP addresses.
Been trying to sort this out for the last few hours...

Incase the raspberry was outdated I tried running sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade but only gave me some "see apt-secure(8) manpage" error.
Whole bunch of googling to find that "apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change" solved it. Could finally install all updates.

A whole lot more googling to find out how to set the ip properly.
Added the lines 'interface eth0' and 'static ip_address=10.10.10.11/8' after using 'sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf'.
Now I could finally ping the mesa card and get a good response!
I've tried setting this before in the GUI but didn't seem to work, granted I may have done something wrong without realizing.

So after that I've struggled for quite a while trying to install 'Mesa configuration tool 2', took me a loooong while to see that it doesn't work on raspian 10. Still not sure how to get around that.
Trying to understand how this works. Raspian10(Buster) is based on Debian10 and is basically the operating system?
LinuxCNC gets installed with the OS and is somehow bound to it and not just a "regular program"?
The image I downloaded from linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/getting-st...etting-linuxcnc.html is raspian10 hence doesn't work with the MCT2. 
linuxcnc.org/downloads/ links to LinuxCNC 2.9.1 based on 'raspian 12' so that could work but then requires some experimental kernel(which I have no idea what it is)?


Downloaded the zip of configs from mesa's website hoping maybe I can use that and not need the MCT2, that's my current step, trying to flash the one with a pwm output... To be continued.

ckuecker wrote:

I've very impressed with the latency numbers - an order of magnitude better than what I was getting before.
 

Thanks. Good feedback. Getting a decent 64 bit kernel onto the pi makes quite a difference!
A lot of other installs are only 32 bit.

Found that suggestion. Got everything running now.
I've very impressed with the latency numbers - an order of magnitude better than what I was getting before.
Thanks for the help!

try running sudo menu-config
That lets you set locale and wifi

mrcrankyface wrote:

By chance I noticed that mousing over the wifi symbol in the taskbar shows some more info. This shows me that wlan0 is connected to our home wifi whilst eth0 is "Configured 169.254.201.82/16" which also seems wrong. It should show 10.10.10.10?
I did not manage to find anywhere I could manually set this(like the TCP/IP settings on Windows)

 

The cause of the mess is that the network is not configured correctly.
I suspect that the IP in eth0 is still set to DHCP. And no, if your 7i96 is called 10.10.10.10, your computer must have a different IP.  Maybe 10.10.10.1.
You can set it by right-clicking on the network symbol in the settings. Or you can look here for relevant posts:
forum.linuxcnc.org/forum/search
as a search term perhaps interfaces. There you will find a lot to adjust your settings.

Hello!

By issue I mean I'm most likely the problem and am just not seeing what's wrong.
First time ever using Linux and LinuxCNC so could be really obvious things, maybe we'll find out.

First issue:
Pncconf won't let me change a stepgen to pwmgen which I need to control my VFD.
I have this quote I've saved from somewhere, probably from this forum.=10.0pt"To load 7i96d_1pwm.bit you would need to fetch the 7i96.zip archive from Mesa,
extract the 7i96d_1pwm.bit bitfile and run these commands:
mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr [the cards current ip address] --write 7i96d_1pwm.bit
mesaflash --device 7i96 --addr [the cards current ip address] –reload" I'm guessing that's just something I write into the terminal thing? I'm so used to Windows so this is abit out of my depth.

Second problem:
In the configurator, when testing the axises/motors, nothing moves. I click enable and run but nothing happens. Do I need to do something more?

Third problem:
Possibly the cause of my second problem, who knows.
After finishing the pncconf I tried starting LinuxCNC but it refuses. This is the error message it throws:

I'm guessing the main issue here is the "could not retrieve hardware address ..."
I'm fairly sure I've configured the Mesa card to respond to 10.10.10.10 but seems it's not working? I tried "ping 10.10.10.10" in the terminal but nothing happens for maybe 20 seconds after which I got "From 46.59.119.34 icmp_seq=14 Packet filtered" which seems like a weird response to a ping?

By chance I noticed that mousing over the wifi symbol in the taskbar shows some more info. This shows me that wlan0 is connected to our home wifi whilst eth0 is "Configured 169.254.201.82/16" which also seems wrong. It should show 10.10.10.10?
I did not manage to find anywhere I could manually set this(like the TCP/IP settings on Windows)

This is the Mesa card, as far as I can tell, the jumpers next to the "Power in" at the bottom right should be set to 10.10.10.10.


Any guidance on this would be much appreciated!

Hi, Rodw,

Used your install guide and this thread to get my Raspberry Pi 4 router mill up and running. Thanks for the great help!

Found a thread on install troubles - got WiFi working. Jitter about doubled to 130590 on servo. Still get the locale error in pncconf after a reboot.

Also, pncconf wizard shows errors - something about unsupported locale setting - happens right after setting up the Mesa board at the X Motor screen.

Hi - I tried installing LinuxCNC according to this thread - it's up and running as Linux, good latency. Problem is - I cannot get WiFi working. raspi-config seems to be missing? Any ideas?

Hi,
I've been pouring over a bunch of threads here on Mesa boards and I'm pretty sure that I want to upgrade my system to use one, but I'm still quite confused about the best one to choose and the overall process of getting it hooked up and any other hardware required.  I'm sure this info is already out there somewhere but I'm having a really hard time piecing it all together.

I have been running LinuxCNC on a dedicated desktop PC using a parallel port interface to control my CNC lathe.  I've had some issues with latency and timing, particularly with threading operations.  I'd like to upgrade my setup to use a Mesa board for (hopefully) better performance and also to get away from using the parallel port.  I think an ideal solution would be to use a Raspberry Pi with the Mesa board so that I don't need to tie up a full PC.  I've read about varying results of this approach on this forum.  Mesa makes the 7c81 board (seems to be out of stock currently) specifically to interface with the GPIO of the RPI or I could get one of the ethernet boards, but some users complain about timing issues with ethernet on the RPI.  An ethernet board also seems nice if I decide to use it with a PC instead of an RPI.  Which boards have people had success with when controlling with an RPI?

My current setup (using the PC with parallel ports) can control 3 open loop steppers, has 6 limit switches, an encoder for the spindle and an MPG with a quadrature encoder, and about 5 other buttons/knobs for input.  So I'd like to get a Mesa board that can handle all of those outputs and inputs.  In the future, I'd also be curious about using some glass scales on the X and Z axes of the lathe to provide feedback, but maybe that's another topic.

Are there any self-contained guides or tutorials on getting the mesa board setup with LinuxCNC?  Will I need to change the firmware on the FPGA to configure it?  Do I even need to run a real-time OS if the FPGA is controlling all the fast timing? 

I really appreciate all help and suggestions!
Carson

Sound like fun

You might be able to retain RS422 control, if you know the format of the datagrams.
It's certainly worth a try, just using a USB to RS422 converter and a terminal emulator program.

How long is a datagram? Bear in mind that the most practical form of a LinuxCNC HAL driver would simply send a new position command every 1mS. So the data packet needs to be short enough to be sent in that time at 9600b.

Is there any particular reason that you are looking at the 7i90? Are you looking to control via the parallel port? Or is the plan SPI control with a Raspberry Pi or similar?

If you feel that RS422 control is the way forward, then the HD50 cards (like the 7i90) are the right choice as ypu would want to be using the 7i44 serial interface rather than the 7i74 one. This is because the 7i74 only has one RS422-capable channel.

Actually, if the drives are daisy-chained, 1 channel might be enough.

I think that step 1 is to check if the drives can be reconfigured for step/dir, quadrature or +/-10V drive. All three are well-supported by LinuxCNC.

Maybe take a look here for a driver which uses the Mesa UARTs for serial control: github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/2.9/sr...sa_pktgyro_test.comp though that particualar driver is recieve-only.
The point is that it is probably easily done with a custom HAL component:
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/hal/comp.html