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Here's my .hal and .ini file.

It's a pretty simple 3-axis setup with stepper motors.  Was initially running 2.7 for many years then last month tried out 2.8 (which automagically converted my ini file) and I made some small pin name changes to reflect the differences in going to 2.8.

Yeah, T470 with touchscreen is rare. I've come across a few T460 with touchscreen though.
BTW, Is your X1 a Yoga (can it flip the screen to tablet)?
Not sure it matters, I think the X1Carbon with an 180 degree screen is about the same hardware. But I have this possibly naive idea that if I go with a Yoga, I could keep it in tablet mode most of the time, maybe even fab up an arm for it in folded mode.

One more question, any issues at all with using ethernet adapters? I don't think any of the X1 or Yogas have a classic Ethernet port.

Also, some of the newer options have higher res screens - like 2K. Any issues with the screensets? I recall, e.g. ProbeBasic which I am leaning towards saying it's strictly 1920. Maybe there's some sort of internal emulator on the laptop that can pretend to be 1920, but whether that works in Linux I have no idea about.

Thank you. That clears things up a little more.

So I can change the wiring a bit, Maybe even connect the other pin to the drive enable.

As a first step please post ini & hal files.

Thanks for clearing that up Rod, it made sense in my mind, which was probably a bad sign.

As a band aid solution I extracted the files from the ethercat-dkms package and ran the update script in the directory for the boardcom stuff, which is a pain as the whole linux sources are need, not just the headers. Anyways some of the patches failed so I gave up on the theory.

Tommy, thanks again. Using your HAL and INI file I was able see what changes I needed to make and it's working great! Dual-Y axis with "self squaring" homing!

unknown wrote:

As of Feb 4th 2025 the the 6.12.xx series kernel is not supported by Ethercat, so installation will fail. 

Only installation of Ethercat will fail. I have raised an issue with etherlabmaster on their gitlab repo asking if they have a time line for 6.12 support.
I alos pointed out they should get their finger out as Debian Trixie is only a few months away and it is currently running 6.12

VGA 3 rows of pins
9 & 25 Pin serial 2 rows of pins.

VGA will fit into a serial port, hammer, lube & wire cutters required to remove pins, guaranteed to not work.

T530, I think I'm in a cult.
Get the model with the dual graphics (heatsink\cooler is better and reportedly will run a 45w i7), If you want to stay with 35 watt, i7-3632QM will be fine. Meh to touch screen, IMHO, sausage fingers make it hard.

USB to parallel port adapters do not work with LinuxCNC.
Also, not VGA cable, that should be serial port with 9 pins and 3 thin wires, whereas VGA has 15 pins, but they do have the same outside dimensions.

Can I have my dummy back ?

Welcome back.

Well that limits stuff to only X1 Carbon Yoga then, given that bumping into a T470 with touchscreen and 120Hz screen is quite hard.
BTW all 3 of mine have 120Hz screens, although that is utterly useless given the integrated Intel graphic.
The thing is, X1 are hard to find, but they have top quality electronics and build quality, and X1 Yoga even harder.
My X1 is Gen 1, there are many gens after it.
T470 and Yoga 370 have no generations, as far as i know.

As of Feb 4th 2025 the the 6.12.xx series kernel is not supported by Ethercat, so installation will fail. Those wanting Ethercat are encouraged to use the previous version. This is one of the pitfalls of creating images, if a older kernel is used people get upset, if a newer kernel is used people get upset. Eevn if we had of used the Rpi kernel that is "current", 6.6.x series, Ethercat would have the same issue.

Rodw is on to it and has raised the issue on the github repo.

www.linuxcnc.org/iso/rpi-4-debian-bookwo...23-11-17-1731.img.xz
www.linuxcnc.org/iso/rpi-5-debian-bookwo...23-11-17-1520.img.xz

"Does not work" is useless without further information. We do not read minds, I at least don't like playing 1000 questions.

If you have issues writing the image to an SD card, try extracting the image from the downloaded file (don't ask me I don't use windows), as the file is compressed to save space and time downloading, then try writing the image. If that fails check the sha256 sum. Tho if the file is corrupt extracting file will likely fail anyway. So check it first.
www.linuxcnc.org/iso/

Hey Tommy,
As always thanks for all the info you readily share here.
Quick question if you don't mind and then some background if you care for it;)

Which of all these touchscreen options do you rate the highest for our use?
(I know there's no guaranteee it will work as well for me)

Background:
The thing is, I used to be based in China and can still source there on the cheap so I can get pretty much all of the options you listed and some others (except no Y370s, maybe they never sold it there).

For my mill/router I have sourced a Lenovo mini pc, a Dell touchscreen and Mesa cards - though still haven't installed it.

But I will soon set out to CNC a small lathe and I am up for giving a cheap laptop a try. I actually don't have a PC laptop at all so even if it somehow doesn't work out for machine control, I could still use a cheap one to tune the servos on the machines and run 1-2 other odd Windows programs - then I wouldn't need to keep the machine PCs as dual boot machines.