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There's 7I76+7I85S firmware for a 7I80DB but not for the 7I76+7I85.
I can make this if you tell me which version of the 7I80DB you have (-16 or -25)

Note that Sserial cards don't need any card specific support in the firmware.
(as long as there is a sserial port, any sserial card is supported)

The 7I76 has 1 free sserial port and the 7I85 has 5 free sserial ports.

Just did that and it seems possible. Now the next question, which bit file should i use for this configuration (7i80-DB + 7i85 and 7i76 with the 7i87 connected to the 7i76)? thank u

I was running this computer over a year on 2.9.x with no problems.
Anything is worth a try, new Intel card on order. It should be here tomorrow.

Do double check this, but it should be possible to just wire the 7i87 to 7i76 using a cut off LAN cable, the Smart Serial connector, info on exact wiring is on the 7i76 manual.

BloodyT wrote:

....successfully got my pi5 running with LinuxCNC 2.10 (which I read is required to run a 7i95T).
 

Where did you read that? I would really like to delete that as it is just adding to the "buy a RPI" sickness spreading all over the web.
RPI is NOT required to run, it CAN be used to run LinuxCNC, any PC can be used to run LinuxCNC and Mesa cards.
-
On the Mesa subject, i do have somewhere a working 7i95 config if you need one, without the 7i77.
As for firmware, please do not proceed without consulting with PCW here, you seem to be bumping into some fishy info...
And for next time, when you have a 7i95 and you need to add analog outputs, use a 7i83 as 7i95 has encoder inputs. That is if you do not need all of the stepgens and encoders and analog outs and encoders...

Hello everyone,
I have a set-up consisting of a MESA 7i80-DB connected to two daughtercards, 7i76 for stepper motor control + a 7i85 additional board. I would like to add a third board, MESA 7i87, to read some analog sensors.
Do you know if this is possible or not? Is there a LinuxCNC firmware for this configuration?

Hello, 

i am beginner and (so far I can tell right know) successfully got my pi5 running with LinuxCNC 2.10 (which I read is required to run a 7i95T).
Sadly pncconf has no template for the Card, nor the combination of cards. So I decided to give mesact a try which at least knows the cards I got.
for my understanding, I need a firmware file to flash on my 7i95T to make the daughter card addressable. is that correct?
After downloading the firmware of the card and saving to the mentioned folder I recognized there is no firmware on the Mesa website available for my combination of cards?! or am I missing something? <screenshot appended>
can somebody help me out with it?

 

If I understand the source of the hostmot2 driver correctly, it is limiting the acceleration and also the driver does the encoder scaling.

This will make the firmware a bit more complicated, but I really want to use the original EtherCAT source already in LinuxCNC, and not develop a driver. This HW should be plug-and-play

i think i finished the prototype stage, all of the prototype faults are corrected, pcb updated, Linuxcnc HAL Driver finished with safety mechanism (watchdog + jump code checksum, (also in the pico)), added optional lcd connector(128x64 sh1106) to the pcb, python library is ready for other uses (experimenting, remote io, etc....)

 

Ok, sorry, did not know that it is about ethercat.
building new boards for this is of course a good thing, i thought there would be another ESP32/Arduino board or something.

hostmot2 is open source.

I've put to together a couple of open source boards that work with a dev board, so far I've only had some interest from some guy on github.

There's nothing special on the FPGA side that is different from a Spartan6 dev board, SPI & EPP are easy to do. Ethernet is a little bit more difficult, but it is doable, I'm just having issues with using Mesaflash writing bitfiles.

With EtherCAT, after You made your XML file, there is no real difference between Mesa or EtherCAT to be honest.
I got a Beckhoff coupler with 10 natively supported modules running in LinuxCNC in about 5 Minutes. For my custom board it was about 10 Minutes.
The only real additional work is making the XML file.

I also like the Mesa boards, but the boards I need are never on stock, when I need them (of course alway on stock, when I don't want to buy one).

I think the huge advantage of EtherCAT are the cheap (chinese) AC-servo and stepper drives and the really simple wiring. Advanced diagnostics are also simple with the TwinCAT software, but that sadly requires a Windows PC and a supported NIC.

The main reason designing a pendant is, that I have seen a nice one with a display for Mach3, and I really got envios

ajar171 wrote:

Also the ethercat driver in LinuxCNC works very nicely, and is in my opinion easier to configure than a Mesa card.

So far you are the only one who thinks so!
That is from reading here, i have no EtherCAT experience, yet, so i can not deny nor confirm that.
But i can configure Mesa while sleeping...

Thanks for the answers!

Why new? I use ethercat a lot at work, so I also wanted ethercat on my machines

Yes, a lot of hardware (stepper, servo drives, etc.) have ethercat and I also use them, but an encoder input from Beckhoff costs a fortune even on the second hand market. Also the ethercat driver in LinuxCNC works very nicely, and is in my opinion easier to configure than a Mesa card.

The I/O board is only a side project to be honest, my main goal is an open source ethercat MPG pendant with a display.

I've been having issues with MB2HAL and an L510 VFD rebrand. I was hoping to try VFDMOD but unfortunately, the ARM DEB package is armhf and I am using an Rpi 5.Early days for my linuxCNC'ing, but....Is it possible to repackage for arm64 from 32bit?Also thought I'd attach the wiki here just in case.