Ethercat HAL driver

Hey Guys, short question: Im playing around with Ethercat-Components at the moment.
I want to get rid of the LPT-Interface of my mill and drive the stepper with EL2024 Output-Clamps and some Buttons with EL1008.
Ive put all together and i see the devices when i run ethercat slaves
I use the generic-driver. I tried an old macbook and a virtual machine on a newer macbook with linuxcnc 2.6 and 2.7. I can list all clamps here too but when i start linuxcnc the complete system hangs and i need to reset the pc.
Do i need one of that intel-nic's or is the generic driver ok for that kind of application?
Is it possible to use the output-clamps for driving step and directions signals at all?

Regards, Jan

I would be very surprised if a VM could drive the ethernet port in real-time.
Also, the real-time kernel in a VM will not be real-time.

As it sounds like you have two Macbooks, I suggest converting one to "real" Linux (assuming it is Intel)

Ive used the vmware-macbook just for testing and configuring because the place around the machine is not enough to set it up at the machine-computer. BUT one macbook drives a vm and the other macbook runs linuxcnc nativly.
Both have the same problem. Both use the generic-driver and none of them hast a intel-networkcard.
So you think i will need one of the intel or realtek-cards to use that beckhoff-stuff?

DaPeace wrote: Hey Guys, short question: Im playing around with Ethercat-Components at the moment.
I want to get rid of the LPT-Interface of my mill and drive the stepper with EL2024 Output-Clamps and some Buttons with EL1008.
Ive put all together and i see the devices when i run ethercat slaves
I use the generic-driver. I tried an old macbook and a virtual machine on a newer macbook with linuxcnc 2.6 and 2.7. I can list all clamps here too but when i start linuxcnc the complete system hangs and i need to reset the pc.
Do i need one of that intel-nic's or is the generic driver ok for that kind of application?
Is it possible to use the output-clamps for driving step and directions signals at all?

Regards, Jan

Why don't you try to configure the ethercat HAL component from HAL console (executing halrun) before try it with linuxcnc?.

Create a .hal file with
You can load the file doing halrun -I halfile.hal and check some values with halscope or halmeter

Best regards.

Ive now tried that out. Ive used the macbook with native linuxcnc 2.6 and the millingcomputer with 2.7 and i get a kernelpanic on both devices. i can start axis for example with very basic hal-file or i can run halrun and after a while i get that kernalpanic. when its not crashing right after start i can open hal-overview and i can trigger the inputs and see that they are reacting. but after max. 2mins i get that kernel panic.
Following Crashlog i get:
Crashlog

When i put your code into a basic-halfile and start it i get a kernelpanic instantly.
At the end of the trace it says Code: Bad EIP value.

Dear all,

I have the same issue on D525MW motherboard with integrated network card and generic driver. I already try to put inside some other PCI card but I have still same issue as Dapeace - above.

Best regards.

Did you try one of the intel-cards and use the e100 or e1000-driver or did you only try another card with generic-driver? I think about getting a intel-card and try out again.

Hi,

I just try another card with generic driver.

Best regards.

Ok so there is a chance a intelcard could fix that.. i will try to get one on monday and report here if it works..
if someone has another solutions for that it would be very nice to know

Hi again,

today I once again try pci network card Tenda L8139D together with 8139too driver and system works without crashing now for more than 4 hours. I think that generic driver was not suitable for non of the cards.

Best regards.