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Hi Everyone. Thank you all for contributing to the Ethercat Integration. I am also a new user trying to configure an EL8 drive.

I have installed rodw's iso from his Google Drive and followed his step-by-step thread with no errors. However LinuxCNC is not opening, giving me the attached report. I have cloned Marco Reps' files from GitHub ( github.com/marcoreps/linuxcnc_leadshine_EL8.git ) and adjusted the XML file to reflect my bench test, a single EL8 drive and one EK1100 i/o. I compiled his cia402, el8_homecomp, always_homed, and servospindle components. I have also installed the EtherCAT drivers from here:  github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat .

Any help would be much appreciated.

spumco wrote:

JT wrote:

Here's a video showing the safety features of Flex GUI when probing is enabled.

JT
 

I haven't played with Flex since you first posted links some time ago, but I think I'm going to have a go at it soon.

Regarding the probe safety... is this set of features adjustable?  I have a wireless probe and somewhere on the never-ending list of things to do is use M19 to approach the target with the probe in the same orientation every time.
 

Absolutely, all you have to do to have a MDI push button that sends a M19 available during a probe operation is to simply name it probe_some_name. Any widget that starts with probe_ is disabled when not in the probe mode and enabled when probe mode is on.
gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/flexgui/probe.html

JT

No sudo is needed with Ethernet cards.

ENA+ and ENA-  pins are just a switch (an optocoupler transistor) intended
for enabling the servo drive (They are "on" when enabled)

The AOUT pins are the +-10V analog outputs. There is a DC-DC converter
on the card for the analog outputs.

If that result is with RX+ connected to TX+ and RX- connected to TX-
on the plug, and this is a 7I96S, then the RS-485 interface has been damaged.

Hello you  all,
I've just installed the linuxcnc on one of my computers, and when it worked correctly I decided to take a membership.

I wonder if the peremtive kernel is the same or similar to ubuntu studio kernel. I commonly running my computers on ubuntustudio kernels (it's my poor mans mac). In the beginning of ubuntustudio i also ran on real rt kernels, so I'm quite familiar with that to.

If there are any problems I would like to have some advices. If it's possible to run linuxcnc on ubuntustudio or the  other way  around would  be nice. To run ubuntustudio applications at the same time as I'm carving my pcb's it's not the case, both are to critical to mix. But to use the same installation for both purposes without the need to reboot  the other kernel would be nice.

So my question is, concretely: have anyone tried or are there any problems combining ubuntustudio and linuxcnc?

Intel N100 works great with Debian 13 (Trixie pre-release) and LinuxCNC 2.9.3-1+b2

I have achieved good results with a cheap and super small N100 mini PC, with 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 256GB NVMe drive, dual LAN and Wifi/BT. It is available on AliExpress and other channels as a T8 Plus and it is sold under different brand names. The price varies between 120.- and 200.- USD depending on the configuration. I attached some images below.
It came with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed and activated. I decided to go for a dual boot system, keeping Windows and installing Debian in a separate partition, so I could use Windows for my servo motor tuning software.

In order to try something new, which is usually more fun, I decided to install Debian Trixie (yes, pre-release Debian 13), via the text based installer, which went flawlessly. I chose Cinnamon for the GUI, which often gave me somewhat unstable lacencies under Debian 12, probably due to some graphics driver issues, and I was curious if Cinnamon would perform better under Trixie. After booting my new Debian 13 system, I opened Synaptic and installed linux-image-6.10.9-rt-amd64. Then I rebooted and confirmed that Debian was running with the RT kernel:


which showed:  Linux <pc-name> 6.10.9-rt-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Debian 6.10.9-1 (2024-09-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Next I installed LinuxCNC version 2.9.3-1+b2 from the Trixie repository, including the optional dev package,  via:


Nice to see that the latest stable release is automatically installed from the Debian Trixie repository

I did some latency tests without any BIOS changes or using isolcpus, and as to be expected the results were quite terrible with values for both the servo threat Max Jitter and base thread Max Jitter above 600000ns. (yes, six hundred thousand; it is not a typo). During the latency test I had 8 instances of glxgears running, internet connection via the build-in Wifi, Firefox had two tabs open with YouTube videos running and I was browsing the internet.

I then went into the BIOS settings and ONLY disabled Virtualization. After rebooting and doing another latency test, the results were much better, but still quite high. Before making any additional BIOS changes I decided to first play around with isolcpus to figure out which core(s) should be isolated from the general scheduler in order to get the best performance. I tested all possible combinations under the same test scenario as mentioned above, which took me several hours, and I found that isolcpus=1,2,3 resulted in the most optimal latency values. The Max Jitter values for both threads stayed below 20000ns, which is totally acceptable.
Next step was going back into the BIOS in order to disable things like C State and other power saving features, which is usually recommended to reduce latency, but strange enough disabling those only resulted in HIGHER latency instead of lower, so I stayed with only disabling virtualization and left the rest in their default settings. While I am typing this, the computer has been running for a few hours with the latency test and all those background programs running, and the Servo thread Max Jitter is 17646ns and the Base thread Max Jitter is 18711ns. Perhaps in the next few days I will take another look at the BIOS settings, trying to further reduce the latency, although I realize that is really not needed. All in all I am more than happy with this N100 mini PC. I will also test with some different desktop environments, especially lightweight environments like XFCE and LXQt. I may follow-up with another post about my findings.

As a PS: for those who want to use a Qt based GUI, like QtDragon, a Python file needs to be modified. Debian 13 comes with Python 3.12.6 installed. As from Python 3.12 locale.format is deprecated and needs to be replaced with locale.format_string in three places (lines 270, 277, 281) in the following file:


This fix is already implemented in the upcoming LinuxCNC 2.10 release, available on the LinuxCNC github page as a work in progress.

I hope this may be helpful for those looking for a modern cheap PC for LinuxCNC. N100 is definitely a suitable solution.
 

I would like to ask how it is created for ENA0+ a
ENA0- voltage +/-10V? Mesa is powered by 5 volts. Is there a step up DC-DC module?

A collet tray (for 4NS, to suit the Rivett) 

 

A foundry pattern designed and printed for someone on the Holbrook lathes list. A back-gear cover for the Holbrook T15.

 

And the partly finished part in cast iron

 

A Givi rack to replace the passenger seat on my bike

youtube.com/shorts/UEeKN_uj1Pw?si=TfH2yq2sSMOxZEXm

The answer is:
0000EBFF
00002BFF
00006BFF

and it dosent care if the loopback is connected or not

the 6 pin plug is this the contraption with resistors?
 

Sensors data below:
========================================
raycnc1@debian:~/Desktop$ sensors
acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1:        +16.8°C  (crit = +20.8°C)
temp2:        +27.8°C  (crit = +119.0°C)
temp3:        +29.8°C  (crit = +119.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +47.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +47.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:        +47.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

raycnc1@debian:~/Desktop$
==================================================
CPU core temp maximum I found while randomly running sensor command is 53 degree.

But why display is going blank? Any possibility of driver/software issue?? I am doubtful about the SMPS though (it is a normal 350 watt).

Glad you were able to get it resolved!

JT wrote:

Here's a video showing the safety features of Flex GUI when probing is enabled.

JT
 

I haven't played with Flex since you first posted links some time ago, but I think I'm going to have a go at it soon.

Regarding the probe safety... is this set of features adjustable?  I have a wireless probe and somewhere on the never-ending list of things to do is use M19 to approach the target with the probe in the same orientation every time.

Yes that is OK.
As for restarting, in a terminal while LinuxCNC is running:
sensors
Check the resulting CPU temperature as that is one of the reasons the PC restarts, and so are failing power supply, failed main board capacitors (see if tops are bulged), failing memory or memory controller.

in a terminal.