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Thanks for the feedback I will try again .

When I bought the machine it would not boot, with a bios battery error message, so the original computer is probably dead, but not really a big loss... But the machine was working fine the last time it was used, a couple of years ago, according to the seller, so the original Indramat drives and motors are probably fine. Main problem is they require 380v, 3-phase and 17kW of it... A bit more than I have available in my garage. So the plan is to reduce the power somewhat (especially for the 10kW spindle motor), given the machine is only going to be used for hobby projects, and get it to run at 230v 3 phase.

With regards to ethercat vs mesa it looks to me, based mostly on forums posts, that the mesa route is safer, more tested and less potential problems, does that sound about right?

Yes
The ini file is from gmoccapy sim sample
Only adjusted machine size and speeds according to real cnc.

Dear meister:

 


When I add debounce for bitin7, the builder had a error.
Thank you


Tim

Dear meister:

I tested again, Thank you very much

In your ini file your max limits are negative, I doubt that is correct. Remove the - from max limits. If the motors run the wrong direction, fix by adding - to scale value as tommylight has pointed out.

Now that sounds pretty neat! I take it your Arduino Q contains literally both the mini-pc running Debian 13 AND the motion controller grblHAL STM32. The entire system on one compact little Arduino board the size of Arduino UNO!
I bought one of those Arduino Q when they introduced them. I'd love to unpack it and try that, but I'm currently working overtime on another big project, that should be done in a few more weeks...

Did you try editing the ini file for the sim?

If the old motors and drives work, i would not change them, just get some Mesa analog boards and move on.
I can not give you useful advice for now as i always try hard to use the existing drive train when retrofitting (done plenty of those), and i did not use EtherCAT yet, but from what i read here they are both hard to set up and have issues i do not like to deal with, especially having position feedback going on vacation at random on a 15 ton machine.
If you need inspiration, have a browse through "show your stuff" section of the forum, plenty of retrofits by me and other forum members there, also many more on other sections but might be harder to find.

I still have some old functional microwaves in the shop...
And some 6S/32AH batteries,at 10C they can deliver 320A of current easily, should be enough to run 6-8 microwaves at once! For around 5 minutes...

I really hope those are not - signs in front of the axis lengths!
First, make sure when X axis is moving to the right numbers go up on screen, move up when Y axis moves away from you, and go up when Z axis goes up although these should be negative values.
You can change direction of any axis/joint in the hal file, just add - sign in front of the SCALE value in the INI file, save and run LinuxCNC (needs restarting LinuxCNC, not the PC)
Only after you got this correct move on to fixing homing if using home switches.

Dont forget to set halui.axis.N.jog-speed as well to the same value as joint.N.

joint.N.jog-speed is used before homing, and axis.N.jog-speed is used after.

It may get a little complicated in HAL, but there should be a component or other logic chain which triggers joint.N.plus when the joystick value is >0, and opposite for <0.

Maybe look at wcomp...  Perhaps two wcomp instances, one for plus and one for minus:

• set the wcomp.0.min to just above 0
• set the wcomp.1.max to just below 0

giving you (I think) an adjustable deadband if the joystick analog value flutters a bit at the center point.

Thanks for the hint.
From what I see i have to set halui.joint.jog-speed to some nominal value
Then net the analog value halui.joint.N.analog as I have done above

It also seems possible that I have to set either halui.joint.N.minus or halui.joint.N.plus to actually initiate the jogging

I will play with these options

A bit of background I had gifted a 1995 Cipher engraving table controlled by a Multicam M23 box all new in the day I wanted to bring it up to date and do a complete rebuild and upgrade and as I knew/know just a little I firstly built a control box using a raspberry PI5 and attached it to a testrig I made and then to a chinese table learning how to use Linuxcnc Freecad and any other useful addons.

Now for the issue I have rebuilt the Cipher table with my Pi5 control box and it all works sensors steppers BUT initially it was engraving text mirrored so I fiddled with the INI file settings  min limit and max limit...and eventually got it to do machining BUT the layout is upside down and the X and Y axis numbers are negative below is an image showing the home and extents I have also attached the INI file
I would like to be able to load the files right side up All works fine on my first table build.

I should add that the table image attached is as the physical table but the image on screen in axis shows the home position top rhs if I "fiddle and get the home to btm left on the screen it messes with the homing 

 

No idea about the motors as they tend to have several types of feedback, but for a general idea of retrofitting such machines have a look here:
forum.linuxcnc.org/30-cnc-machines/33529-hurco-bmc-20p-retrofit
forum.linuxcnc.org/30-cnc-machines/31792...-01-retrofit?start=0
There are many more, lathe and a lot of plasma machines i have retrofitted, but this is more like yours, hopefully.