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axemas wrote:

...
Thank you so much for the kind words — it really motivates us to keep going!
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Thanks again for the feedback — users like you make open source
worth working on!

Axemas

No no, WE open source users are the ones who should be thanking YOU!In a world where so much revolves around power, money, profit, and exploitation, it’s really great to see people like you and many other kind folks here on the forum working on such a huge and brilliant tool like LinuxCNC and making it freely available to everyone. And doing all of that in your spare time, simply to help others bring their machines to life or even rescue them, just to make people happy without expecting anything in return or having any hidden agenda.I can’t really contribute much myself, other than pointing out features I might be missing, testing things, and give feedback how well everything works. Or telling other hobbyists how great this community is and how much fun it is to be part of it. For me, it’s just a great hobby that brings me a lot of joy.As I mentioned, I’ve been using NativeCAM on my milling machine for years and I still absolutely love it. I’m very grateful to Fern and all the other developers who have contributed to it over time.When I started converting my lathe about a year ago, it was immediately clear that I wanted to use NativeCAM Lathe. I also quickly realized that for lathe work you don’t really need a separate CAD/CAM system, especially with that brilliant polyline function combined with tool compensation. Whats means a lot to me. So I was quite disappointed and sad for me to discover that this feature was never fully completed. Unfortunately it seems that development on it has stopped and we have to accept that. (Still hoping Fern is doing well and is just busy...)All the more reason why it feels like both Christmas and a birthday at once to hear that you’re planning to take this on and continue his great project that he put so much work into. Thank you very much in advance, I’m really excited to hear that!

Feel free to share your progress with the community while you’re working on it, or if you run into any issues or need someone to test things. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s really excited about this and would be happy to help if possible. I’ll definitely be following the project on Git as well.

Greetings Tom

click on the + sign top left
and joint this channel
discord.gg/uW7KXqMw

or you can add me as grandixximo, just search for friends, I already sent you an invitation, but never got accepted
 

I stay logged here 

You are still doing the install, and cannot get the system online?

the discord you joint the channel, go the the welcome, read the rules, thumb up the rules, and you can join in general
read the instructions and the rules to joint the linuxcnc channel, they are there when you try to join the channel

edit:
you need to confirm email, and maybe phone number
then add server in discord
discord.gg/uW7KXqMw
then you need to go to the rules, and thumbs up react to the first message in the rules, here you see #rules and you click it
 
here you see this message and you click the hand with the thumb up
 
Then you will be able to write in the linuxcnc general channel with everyone else, I also PM you in discord, but you seem offline.

 

About discor. are logged , but how logged in linuxcnc ?

There are two problems:
The delay in reading the slave pins when the GUI starts, and the noise the axes make during movement.

Clearly, the main problem is the noise from the axes, because while they move normally, sometimes you hear jumps, noises that represent non-smooth movement.
The machine cannot operate this way, also because the noise is loud.

The problem of updating the positions at startup is secondary, not fundamental to the actual use of the machine. Sure, it's unsightly for a CNC system, but it only requires a few seconds of delay.

@papagno-source, can we continue in discord, it is really hard to follow up with you here.
I am testing with generic driver, is the problem the OP time, or the grinding?

I have test with driver e1000e in ethercat.conf , the problem is the same

We are aware, but eventually 4.19 will not support new hardware, and eventually old hardware goes out of production, so we need to work on making things run.

mitigations=off is probably the most interesting hypothesis, worth a try, probably effect latency, I doubt it effects OP time.

 

I got a journal of r2m vs m2r
@hakan if the initial time from lcec is the problem, what could be a solution?
Initial time is dictated by the addf, the addf timing IMO has always been an issue, is your intuition also pointing that way? Or something different?

edit:
with my v1.41.0-pre1 from my github
github.com/grandixximo/linuxcnc-ethercat...ses/tag/v1.41.0-pre1
I get r2m I get OP in 6s and m2r in 3s
 

I have question at AI:

ethercat on debian 10 with kernel 4.19 and linuxcnc has less latency than debian 13 with kernel 6.12. Why?

reply , but only for curiosity :

This is a very insightful observation, and while it may seem counterintuitive (new = better?), in the world of Real-Time (RT) and numerical control (NC) like LinuxCNC, "old and stable" often trumps "new and complex."

The move from a 4.19 kernel (Debian 10) to a 6.12 kernel (Debian 13) introduces several layers of complexity that can degrade deterministic latency. Here are the main reasons:
1. Security Mitigations (The "Price" of CPUs)

Since the 4.19 kernel era, numerous hardware vulnerabilities have been discovered in CPUs (Spectre, Meltdown, L1TF, MDS, etc.).

Kernel 4.19: Many of these mitigations were not yet implemented or were less invasive.

Kernel 6.12: Includes a comprehensive suite of security patches that add overhead to every syscall and every switch between user-space and kernel-space. This increases jitter and maximum latency.

2. Kernel RT Integration (Preempt-RT)

Kernel 4.19: The PREEMPT_RT patch was a very mature set of external changes focused exclusively on pure real-time performance.

Kernel 6.12: Much of the real-time code has now been integrated into the Mainline Kernel. While this is a huge technical achievement, the overall integration must make compromises with other modern kernel features, making it sometimes less "extreme" than dedicated patches of the past.

3. Power Management (C-States and P-States)

Newer kernels are optimized for power efficiency.

Kernel 6.12 aggressively attempts to put CPU cores into power-saving states or vary the frequency.

Waking a CPU from a deep "C-state" requires precious microseconds, which, in EtherCAT communication (which often runs at 1kHz or more), translates into latency spikes.

4. EtherCAT Driver (IgH or SOEM)

The EtherCAT master (usually the IgH EtherCAT Master) must be patched to work with each kernel version.

On older kernels like 4.19, "native" drivers (those that replace the standard network card drivers, e.g., ec_8139too) are extremely stable and fast.

On very recent kernels, you're often forced to use the "generic" driver, which runs through the standard Linux network stack, inevitably adding latency compared to an optimized native driver.

5. Operating System Complexity

Debian 13 loads many more background services, more complex systemd versions, and more intensive D-Bus management than Debian 10. Even though LinuxCNC runs at high priority, background operating system noise can affect determinism.
How can I improve the situation on Debian 13?

If you absolutely must use the latest version, you can try "neutering" modern kernel features to regain speed:

Disable mitigations: Add mitigations=off to the GRUB boot parameters. (Warning: This reduces PC security.)

Core isolation: Use isolcpus=X (where X is the core dedicated to LinuxCNC) to prevent the operating system from using it for generic processes.

Idle=poll: Add idle=poll or intel_idle.max_cstate=0 to prevent the CPU from "sleeping."

Check Drivers: Make sure you don't use the generic EtherCAT driver if your network card supports an updated native driver for the 6.x kernel.

In summary: Debian 10 with kernel 4.19 is a "minimalist" and hardware-friendly combination. Debian 13 is a modern, hardened system optimized for power savings—the exact opposite of what's needed to drive a brushless motor in real time.

0x92c seem to correlate but in my testing not perfectly, I can still get quick OP with a big 0x92c
So it might not be the only factor, but I agree it is at least one of the relevant factors.
Smaller 0x92c is quicker OP, I think this has been true in my testing

grandixximo wrote:

edit:
tested with new kernel
uname -r
6.3.0-rt11-linuxcnc
same results, almost no effect
44sec for R2M
12sec for M2R
rule out kernel?

Can't be the kernel then, It was worth a try. When Debian 12 came out on the 6.1 kernel, we were all trying to work out why latency was so bad, but now the factors are well known so now we know updating the kernel no longer helps. (Trixie I have found is better than Bookworm)

@hakan, I read somewhere (maybe even on this thread) the 5000ms was just a waening, and not really something to be concerned about.

Good morning everyone. Today I'll try the latest Grandixximo patch.
I can assure you that all PDOs, both on the I/O side of the first slave and on the drives, are read immediately. The same is true on another machine, where in addition to the drives there are two Delta inverters.

I tried running the following commands on Debian 10:
ethercat debug 1
start linuxcnc
exit or leave running, it doesn't matter.
sudo journalctl --since "2 min ago" | grep "Sync after"

no results.

uname -r 4.19.0-27-rt-amd64
dpkg -l | grep linuxcnc-uspace : no results
dpkg -l | grep ethercat: no results

I checked, and if I don't start axis, all the slaves are in PREOP.

The OP state and writing to the slave pins only occurs immediately after running addf lcec.write-all servo-thread in hal.

Just for completeness of information. On Debian 10, as well as on Trixie, I am using the "generic" device in the ethercat.conf file.

As rodw said, try to add isolcpus=3 or even isolcpus=2,3 in your /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt

Also, I did some tests with Remora over ethernet on a PI400 and you should follow rodw's video to adjust the ethernet connection to your mesa card.

The code that handles the initial synchronization in the EtherCAT master is 16 years old, except for a variable name change 8 years ago
gitlab.com/etherlab.org/ethercat/-/blame...e=heads&page=2#L1480

There are people with this "Did not sync after 5000 ms." problem but no real solution found.

I am sure the x092c register shows the symptoms of the problem.
System Time Difference
 

This have me believing that either
- the slaves' clocks are drifting badly,
- the initial time the slaves get from lcec is not a good choice,
- or both.

Watching the 0x92c register during start, I see often, not always, start at 1000000 ns which is 1 ms.
This is with 1 ms linuxcnc servo loop time. When I go down to 0.5 ms servo loop time, 0x92c often starts at 500000 ns,
so there is a possible a correlation.
This initial 1 or 0.5 ms value in 0x92c happens when I start linuxcnc directly and when I let it sit over night.
This points to that it isn't a slave clock issue, but rather the initial time from lcec that is the problem.

Edit: The startup time for my lcec rt_app_main isn't that bad, its 0.85-0.9 secs. Forgot a test-second I had.

Edit 2: Here is a graph if how slave 1 and slave 2 reduce their time differences. This is from journalctl, 05 ms servo loop time.