Remora - ethernet NVEM / EC300 / EC500 cnc board

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Try this
#

---

# Load realtime Components and their counts

loadrt not  count= 1
loadrt or2  count= 1

#

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# Add functions to threads

addf not.0    servo-thread 
addf or2.0    servo-thread 

#

---

# Connect Pins

net toolset         remora.input.11   not.0.in  
net inv.toolset    not.0.out             or2.0.in0
net toolprobe    remora.input.12   or2.0.in1  
net probe          or2.0.out              motion.0.probe-input 

Good Evening,

I'm relatively new to LinuxCNC having come from Mach 3 on mills previously.  Having found mach3 limited for lathes I have moved over to LinuxCNC.  I have been/have converted an old Boxford 240 TCL to run on new steppers, and LinuxCNC running on a Pi5 connected to an ec300 running the remora firmware.

Everything in general is working fine, except the spindle encoder.  Annoyingly, it is not a quadrature encoder.  It is a 100ppr slotted disk with an additional index pulse.  Currently, this is feeding directly into the Pi5, which is reading the 100ppr but missing the index.

So, my plan is to move the encoder and index over to the ec300.  While i understand that the ec300 has a dedicated index input, I am unsure on using an encoder with remora.  I've read the docs, and have run through this thread but my head is spinning trying to get things straight. 

Does the EC300 have the ability for a hardware encoder?  if not, software would work too, I'm just not sure how to set up the encoder component as I do not have a B phase.

On the hardware side, I'm going to have to work out some electronics as the encoder as it stands is running on 3.3v with schmitt triggers for conditioning.  So I will have to come up with something to level shift this to 24v.

Any help that could be given on the remora side of things would be greatly appreciated.
 

There shouldn't be any problem using an encoder with only A and Z channels. I assume you are using the LinuxCNC software encoder?
If you set counter-mode it should count, but only up, never down. (but you probably already did this).
You seem to be saying that counter-mode prevents index reset from working? I am almost 100% sure that isn't the case.
There may be a not-insuperable problem in your wiring or HAL logic.

As far as I know , only quadratic encoders are currently supported with remora and rt1052

I'm not sure about the ec300 but the ec500 has the ability for hardware counting but you have to bypass the optocouplers as they are shite. 

Thank you both,

Andy, I was meaning using the remora encoder module, but I appear to have misread/missed the part where it would not support count mode like the LinuxCnc one. I will have to stick with the LinuxCNC one, which is working, but only up to around 1900 rpm on one of the RPi pins. likely a base period issue.

Murphy, thank you, that is unfortunate that the 500 is needed for hardware. I don't mind bypassing the opto's or replacing with a faster digital equivalent even if external to the 500. but all that can wait until I sort out a quad encoder of some description.

You will have to confirm , ec300 may still hardware count by modding the same way the ec500 is done. It also has the rt1052 ic ?? 

Yeah the EC300 is the rt1052. Its become a slightly null point for the moment as I've managed to fix the issue temporarily. the pull up on the schmitt trigger for the opto interrupter sensor was too high off the shelf (cheapo Chinese modules) so the pulse width was way too wide, so above around 1800rpm it was just giving a logic high instead of pulses. now got a nice pulse train up until around 4500rpm so for now, i think this will work.

Anyone else able to get a spindle encoder working In CSS mode with the RT1052?

Hi Murphy
No but I will start my lathe project as soon as the mill is done. Was it you that posted a picture of the octocoupler bypass, I wanna try rigid tapping with the mill but I can't find the picture of the board modification.