Upgrade to QTPlasmac from very old Plasmac version

Hi

Due to illness I have not used my plasma cutter and Plasmac since August 2019. Not knowing Linux or Linuxcnc I was helped by a lot of people on this forum and Phil had even sent me the config files I was using.
Unfortunately when I have come to use the plasma again recently, I can’t  get the pc to boot with my 6i25 installed, it was always hit and miss and took many attempts before it would boot.
I have a 7i76e that I had bought for a milling machine but am now using to get my plasma running again. I also want to get on the latest versions of everything including QTPlasmac. 

So far I have done the Debian 10 install with Linuxcnc 2.9 and connected the 7i76e to my plasma table. I thought I would run through the pncconf  and be up and running in no time, but the pnconf pages look like a foreign language to me.
Is there any way I can use my old config files to get to a stage where the machine is running again or at least somewhere close ?

Thanks
Darren

If the 6I25 had a 7I76 daughtercard, the existing hal file would be very close to a
hal file for a 7I76E.

Even if you had a different daughtercard, the hal/ini files will not be terribly
different between 6I25 based system and a 7I76E based one.

Yes the daughter card was a 7i76. I was setup with a run in place, do I Copy the QTPlasmac sim and then overwrite with my hal/ini file. Which hal/ini files would I copy over?

Sorry I am really in the dark with this, I barely got to understand it in 2019 and I just don’t remember any of what I learnt back then

You probably should wait for a PLasmaC expert to chime in here as to the best way
to upgrade.

If this were just a hardware swap it would be pretty simple with just some name changes
in the hal/ini files but the PlasmaC upgrade may mean it would be easier to start from
scratch, not sure...

If it was either a hardware swap or a QtPlasmaC migration then it would be relatively easy but doing both at the same time I think will be quite difficult.

I am not sure if this will work but you could try copying the complete old Plasmac config to the new ~/linuxcnc directory. Then try to do a migration as shown at linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtpl...tml#qt_modify-config
If this is successful then you would need to rename any hal/ini file settings to suit the 7i76e.

Failing this you would need to start from scratch using PnCconf.

Hi Phil

I will give that a try later today.

Also with what you and PCW have said, it sounds as though it may be easy to just do the hardware swap. Is there any mileage do you think in doing that first to get the machine running, then deal with the upgrades of Linux, Linuxcnc and Plasmac in whatever order is best/easiest. Just so I have another option to work on if the first idea doesn’t pay of?
What would I need to do for the hardware upgrade?

Thanks
Darren

If you still have LinuxCNC 2.8 and PlasmaC then you could do the hardware upgrade. When that is working you could then upgrade to LinuxCNC 2.9 and when you try to run PlasmaC it will do the migration to QtPlasmaC for you.
To upgrade the hardware only you need to edit the Hal and ini files to change any references from the original Mesa card to the new one. I am not sure of 6i25 or 7i76e pin names so hopefully PCW can help you with them.

I do still have the original working install as I did the new one on a separate drive. I am guessing the pin names of the 7i76 will be very similar to the 7i76e although there will be some extra config for the IP address of the 7i76e. I will have a look at the files and see if I can puzzle out what to change and how to add the IP details.

Thank you

Ok so I have a machine that jogs and runs a program with the torch switched off. Didn’t get time today to try a full on cut but pretty hopeful it should work. If I can get it cutting tomorrow, I have a few parts I need to cut but then will be looking to upgrade without breaking it.

I currently have a Debian install (meant to check exact version before I shut down) but it’s from around 2018 looks same as 10. My Linuxcnc says version 2.9.0~pre.
This installation is on one hard drive, on a separate hard drive I have the latest Debian 10 and Linuxcnc  with the QTPlasmaC screens. 

Debian 10 and QTPlasmaC is where I want to get to if that’s possible?

Phil mentioned in an earlier reply that after the hardware upgrade I just need to upgrade to 2.9 but not sure how I do that without breaking everything?

Can you post the result from opening a terminal a terminal and entering uname -a 
Is your LinuxCNC a package install or a run in place install.