lcec_conf exited without becoming ready

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1 month 1 week ago #349773 by viesturs.lacis
Hello!

My experience with LinuxCNC goes back for 15-16 years and now I am taking my first steps in getting it to work with EtherCAT. I am doing a retrofit of Biesse CNC machine and customer wants to use VFD for spindle that is made by ABB (model ACS380). Since by default that VFD has 2 digital inputs and 0 analog inputs, I could only get "start/stop" function to work so they got EtherCAT module (FECA_01 with firmware 1.30) for that VFD that I am now trying to get to work.
I have (at least I think so) successfully installed ethercat libraries as per first post by RodW in this thread:
forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45336-etherc...-how-to-step-by-step
I have got XML file from ABB for the VFD drive (they provide ZIP archive with large collection of them and I picked the one that had matching firmware number of the EtherCAT module in filename), I have attached it.
Attached is also a screenshot that shows that EtherCAT service is active, those few lines in HAL file that I used to start lcec module, the thunar window to show actual location of XML file (to show that it matches the line in HAL file) and the error message of LinuxCNC.
Is there anything obvious I am missing?
In many forum posts I see that people also use cia402 module. Is it required here? I have not found any explanation of what exactly it is used for.
Thanks in advance!

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1 month 1 week ago #349776 by rodw
The provided xml is useless for our purposes.Its for twincat on windows You could try typing: lcec_configgen to generate an xml file
cia402 is a standard for drives (and vfds). It essentially uses the cia402 state machine to safely power drives on. so for ethercat drives, we load the lcec driver then for each drive we load the cia402 state machine. Then at the end of our servo thread cycle, we write cia402 back to the ethercat layer and  then write everything back to the ethercat bus
The following user(s) said Thank You: viesturs.lacis

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1 month 1 week ago - 1 month 1 week ago #349777 by viesturs.lacis
ok, thank you!
I tried lcec_configgen and the result is xml file with 2 lines which, based on the error message, seem insufficient (please see attached image). note that it was before I tried adding cia402 module. Is that a mistake and is cia402 module mandatory? because the way I understand it now is that cia402 helps connecting HAL pins, but the VFD should be discovered over ethercat even without it. is that correct? one more thing is that cia402.comp in the comments contains suggested HAL file lines and there lcec_conf is loaded in line 50 before cia402 in line 52:
github.com/dbraun1981/hal-cia402/blob/main/cia402.comp#L50
so I think that it should work like it is, the problem most probably is the XML file
I was expecting at least some kind of output from "ethercat slaves" command - there was totally nothing. is that ok? I was expecting some message that shows discovered slave device or a message that no devices were found
Last edit: 1 month 1 week ago by viesturs.lacis.

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1 month 1 week ago #349782 by rodw
one step at a time. you need to get rid of the error messages. comment out classicladder.
I have never used it so on a starting config, why do you?
Why are you still showing us useless xml?
It seems you are not finding your xml file.
I can't see any relevant messages or that 2 line generated file. it may be correct.

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1 month 1 week ago - 1 month 1 week ago #349783 by viesturs.lacis
a little update - it turns out that the EtherCAT adapter works better if it is enabled in VFD settings. so I did that and then "ethercat slaves" command does recognize it and also lcec-configgen creates a lot more meaningful xml file and installing cia402 component did the trick - now it complains about invalid modparam "enable VLAccel" but that is expected because I brought the laptop in house and left VFD in workshop

do not worry about classicladder - I am using a sample config with classicladder because I wanted to create some basic logic for carousel toolchanger
Last edit: 1 month 1 week ago by viesturs.lacis.

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1 month 1 week ago #349784 by viesturs.lacis
so I tried again with VFD connected and got still the same error (see attached image "error present")
what I did is cut out lines 24-28, saved and tried again and LinuxCNC did run! see attached image "error gone".
how do I proceed from here to actually get the VFD running? is it enough to set the correct HAL pin from 0 to 1 to mimic "run/stop" signal together with providing some frequency/speed value on second pin or does this process require any more steps?

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