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Just FYI, for LCNC with LPT cards the lowest latency jitter is typically reached using RTAI.

The latest RTAI debs for 2.9 may be found here:
forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...ng-rtai-debs-for-2-9

Does lspci show the parallel port I/O  addresses as enabled?
(there is a possibly identical issue is a recent thread)

forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...rallel-port?start=10

When I ran Axis on a very similar machine a number of years ago I never saw or heard about HAL.

That is the idea of the Pncconf and Stepconf tools. It should create all HAL connections for you, provided the user entered the correct information of course. Once everything runs you should not need to touch any of the config files again.

andypugh wrote:

Keystrokes are a pretty bad way to interface to LinuxCNC.

Can I suggest that you consider a Mesa 7i73 ? That can interface the control panel directly into the realtime layer of LinuxCNC.
store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=produc...oduct&product_id=116

It's probably not as much fun as your custom board, but it will work out of the box.

There is a strange HAL component that I wrote that might help if you choose to go your own way. It's strange because it does two completely different things in one component.
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/man/man9/matrix_kb.9.html
The side that might help you is converting scancodes into HAL pins.


 

Andy,
I'm exploring the various ways to get data to and from Linux to my board. I already have hard wires connections for EStop, and machine power.

Focusing for the moment on data from my board to Linux I made a table of the 50 or so button presses that I would need to send, and from playing with a Axis and a regular keyboard using showkey it seems there is a hot key or key sequence that covers all 50 buttons that I anticipate using. There are a few anomalies that requires sending two key strokes or in the case of the jog increment keeping track of how many I's or shift- I's were sent so that has the potential to get out of sync, but other than that it seems really straightforward to just have my little on board uC scan my buttons and send the key or key sequences based on the keycode in the table below.

I found the table "most Common Keyboard Shortcuts" in the Axis documentation.
Do you know if there are additional commands documented elsewhere?

When you say it's a pretty bad idea to do this perhaps there is something I have overlooked?.

The Mesa 7i73 is interesting, but probably not a good fit for this project for a couple of reasons:
1) Physically if mounted as a daughter board would make the overall board depth thicker than I want.
2) I want to use the little touchscreen as I have used it before and it allows easy GUI enhancement in the future for things I can't anticipate now.

Assuming this will work for data to Linux, I now need to put my thinking cap on to figure out how to best get the Linux status data I would like to use back to my board so I can optimize the GUI. Jog Increment value would be a good start, I need to make a list.
 

have add a little plugin-overview:

github.com/multigcs/riocore/blob/main/PLUGINS.md

forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...ng-rtai-debs-for-2-9 new RTAI debs here with instructions

If the clothoid library can only create 2d curves then the only solution I see would be to approximate all arcs with a polyline. Which is exactly what 5axis CAM output seems to do.
With this approach there would only be line-line segment corners.

onelaboratories.us/rtai_lcnc/    5.4.258 matching RTAI kernel and LCNC debs
onelaboratories.us/abc/  5.4.279 matching RTAI kernel and LCNC debs

Don't mix up debs from each of these with each other or with other RTAI packages.
RTAI debs have to built as matched sets.

NO MIX AND MATCH!!

To install from a fresh Debian 12 with NO LCNC installed yet, just use: sudo dpkg -i (package name here without brackets)  for each deb and reboot. Choose the RTAI kernel in Grub, enjoy.

To install on Debian 12 with linuxcnc-uspace already installed use : sudo apt purge linuxcnc*  and wait for apt to completely remove every trace of LCNC.
Then follow the instructions for a fresh Debian 12 install above.

   

Bringing this back as I've finally dug this out of the corner and taken yalls suggestion of taking this apart. 

Looks like the model number for the axis control boards are D41-17445C
and the power supply board is D41-17337B

I've been searching for any wiring diagrams related to these things but haven't really turned up much. One of those free pfd places let me actually preview a CMC maintenance manual which looks like it has a wiring diagram for the control box but was too blurry to read when I zoomed in. 

The driver board does have a place for a tach as well. 

The servos only have 4 wires going to them, I assume plus and minus for power and two tach wires based on that I can read on the control board.
Part of the driver board has wires going directly to the power supply, the rest goto the main control board of which I can't really figure out what they are supposed to be doing. 

Would it simplify things to simply get a driver that can handle those servers? 

Isn't this the same situation as you would have when adding a fillet between a straight line segment and a helix segment in Gcode (except of course the helix segment would be oriented to XY, XZ or YZ plane)?

How do you handle  line-3d_arc segment corners in tool paths?

But then still if a or b rotates below the workpiece in one gcode line, we are lost.

Just so I understand the requirements for the clothoids library:

The clothoids library works for connecting segments that can create a plane.

I presume that can be any plane in space (ie it does not have to be XY XZ or YZ)?
If that is correct we can use the plane that is defined by the tool orientation vector and the corresponding point (TA knot) and project the two TA line segments (ie the one that comes from the previous TA knot and the one that goes to the next TA knot) onto that plane. Then we have the projected lines on a common plane and we can use the clothoids library to create a G2 continuous fillet.
Of course we would need to do this for all TA knots and their respective planes in space.

[edit]
Ok, I think we can forget this idea as this will still not create 3D clothoid curves but only 2D.
[/edit]

I spoke too soon. I have it turning off and on!

Not sure how this connects to axis however.

So it's axis.L.jog-scale is not set - I can force them to set to a static value, but is there a way in Probe Basic to connect it to the GUI increments? If I had room and hadn't already cut the control panel, I'd connect them to a selector switch, but the panel is cut and there's no room for increments. If I need to I can add it outside the control panel (like on the side of the pendant).

I have doing some experiments today and it is possible to run ethercat sync below 1ms interuption.. I have tried 250us sync and it was fine... but I do not know how it will be outside of bench top ...my prehistoric servo drivers has limit at 250us ... I did not test them with sync motion just communication setup and I have generic ec driver only... 

It should be great to test them then anyway..