7i80 and 7i77

Hallo, I'm trying to reactivate a 5 axis mill with 7 controllable axes with a 7i77 for the 5 axes and spindle and an separate Board for the asynchronous Toolchain. I want for this a 7i76 because its easier to throw out the existing DC Driver and take a new step/dir driver like Gecko320 or similiar. If that don't work, I hope, Ican control it with the Spindle who have a 10V + dir output.

The hardware dealer in Austria says to me, that the 7i80 don't work at the moment, therefore I must use the 5i25 or 5i26 Cards for the Computer.

But the ethernet card have many advantages. The Computer can be a very small fanless part, I must only take a small patchcable into my cablehose.

Otherwise with the 5i25, I must take 2 serial cables through it, or not much better 3 smaller cables for the screen, mouse and keyboard.

uli12us wrote: The hardware dealer in Austria says to me, that the 7i80 don't work at the moment, therefore I must use the 5i25 or 5i26 Cards for the Computer.

The 7i80 nearly works, but I can understand the dealers caution. If you want a guaranteed, working, machine right now, then 5i25 is likely to be a lot less trouble.

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Mesa7i..._Linuxcnc_On_Xenomai

Describes how to make the 7i80 work.

I have a 7i80, Let me see if I can make it work. This may take some time.

andypugh wrote: I have a 7i80, Let me see if I can make it work. This may take some time.

I have it working behind me.

Most of that Wiki page is now outdated.

There is now a new branch on the linuxCNC git server which runs without rtnet with a preempt-rt patched kernel. Here is what I needed to do to make it work.

Install a recent version of Linux. I am using Lubuntu 12.04, but I think most of them should actually work. Ubuntu 12.04 Precise would be a safe choice.

Install an RT-preempt kernel. Michael has prepared some Then reboot and make sure that Linux still runs. Check that you are running the new kernel with which should return: 3.10.4-rt1mah #2 SMP PREEMPT RT Thu Aug 1 23:59:36 CEST 2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

The next step is to install git, get the new code, and compile LinuxCNC This will create a new directory, containing the code for LinuxCNC. You need to go into that repository and set up a few things. You might be told that you need to install debhelper or something during this process, just sudo apt-get install anything asked for.
The final output of checkbuilddeps will be a huge list of packages you need. I tend to copy and paste it into a sudo apt-get install line, but you can't just hit "enter" as some of the packages have two alternatives, and some specify the version, so you need to edit those out and choose one alternative where there are two (they | character means "or" to geeks).

Once the dependencies are installed, you can start to compile linuxcnc. We will be creating a run-in-place system to not break the existing installed version. To use a RIP build you need to issue a command in a terminal window, then run "linuxcnc" (or halrun, emcsh, or the others) in that same terminal window. You might have spotted it above That really is dot-space-dot-slash at the beginning. If you are not in the linuxcnc-dev folder then you need the correct path to the scripts directory.

Anyway, to compile: There will be a _long_ time to wait between "make" and "sudo make setuid". It's easy to forget the final command in the interim. I often do then wonder why LinuxCNC won't work.

At this point you should have a working software system. To make the 7i80 work it needs to be plugged into the ethernet port of the pc, and the pc needs to have its IP address on the wired network port set to 192.168.1.1. W1 and W2 on the 7i80 need to be down, so that the IP address is set to 192.168.1.121. You also need to know the 7i80 MAC address.

From that point on it should look a lot like any other Mesa card, but instead of the HAL file needs
Obviously I don't expect you to be up and running with these instructions, it is more a case of giving you a taste of what is involved. You can do all of this as an experiment without the 7i80, then decide which card you want to purchase.

Ok, thank you, I hope I will bring that beast to work. Unfortunately, I haven't any experience with Linux, it looks similiar to the old dos programs on early PCs.

uli12us wrote: I haven't any experience with Linux, it looks similiar to the old dos programs on early PCs.

This is partly because it is much easier to give command-line instructions on a form than GUI instructions.
I think it is possible to do everything here with a GUI, but instructions like "Install Eclipse and click the icon that looks a bit like a sandwich, not not that one, the other one" would be more ambiguous.

Is it right, that the 7i77 have no LEDs for the digital in and outputs. If yes I must make a small Input and outputcard to see, which of the connectors is switched. I think I can see it on the Screen, but if I work behind the machine I must see which sensor is switched, and which actor (most solenoid valves) is activated.

uli12us wrote: Is it right, that the 7i77 have no LEDs for the digital in and outputs. If yes I must make a small Input and outputcard to see, which of the connectors is switched. I think I can see it on the Screen, but if I work behind the machine I must see which sensor is switched, and which actor (most solenoid valves) is activated.

Depending on the application, and the budget, you might want to look at the 7i64. That has LEDs on the inputs and outputs, and the IO is higher-power than the 7i77, and also isolated. It isn't a very cheap board, though, and it still typically needs a 7i77 to plug in to.

I installed an Precise (32-bit) system and rt-preemt kernel based on Andy description.
It works well, but I can not find the 7i80 bit file. Where can I download it?

Thanks
Sneci

sneci wrote: I installed an Precise (32-bit) system and rt-preemt kernel based on Andy description.
It works well, but I can not find the 7i80 bit file. Where can I download it?

The 7i80 uses non-volatile firmware, like the 5i25 and 6i25. So you don't need to load a bitfile every time.

You can change the firmware with the "mesaflash" utility.

If you download www.mesanet.com/software/parallel/7i80.zip

Then if you expand it you should find the mesaflash utility in 7i80/utils/linux. Mesaflash will probably have lost its "execute" bit due to being zipped, "chmod 777 mesaflash" will fix that, or a right-click in the GUI.
The bit files can be found in 7i80/configs/ There are a lot more configs for the 7i80 HD than the 7i80DB