It's Alive!
I reverted back to my old installation and succeeded in clearing all errors except the kinematicsSwitch error.
I then tried a basic config in PnCConf and it worked. (I did not know PnCConf existed)
I am now reading a MPG in halscope, and am confident that by hook or by crook, this mill will run before the year is out.
Thanks to all for the help so far.
#happyChappie

You can setup gantry machines with pncconf:

 

Been trying to get the estop and machine on circuits working properly today with help from marks mh400e information which he kindly sent to me. 
just wondering if the older mahos have the same estop chains and components?
 

Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. 

Yes, any AI I asked eventually started hallucinating code that broke things. 

I did have someone send me a template HAL & INI set for the machine I am using (a Platform CNC with upgraded linear rails. Excellent hardware, currently being let down by confusing software, and its operator.) I was able to cobble something together that mostly worked, after much iteration. Since this was done manually, it didn't help me with learning and using PnCConf, which I would prefer. 

At this point I have everything moving, but until I sort out homing, the Y & Y2 axes are not moving in unison. They are seen as separate Joints 1 & 2. I assumed there would be some way to simply lock them together as one gantry joint(?), but apparently that's not how LinuxCNC works.

Yes, I have flashed the G540 firmware to the 7i92 card.

 

I would start looking at
- encoders. With the current stm32f407 the quadrature counters are tied to certain pins, and max 4 such hardware counters. Code is in E3000, would copy that.
- EtherCAT chip, would base it on LAN9252 (which most of the cards use) due to Ax58100 limit of 2x16 pdos. Don't know of a limit for LAN9252, it's not less than 2x16. 
- Opto-couplers, would revisit.

If you are thinking of stepper generator with encoder inputs, say for four of them, would base it on E3000 for the user code and extend to four encoders, code is already there. soes library from E7000. Hardware will be based on E3000 around stm32, around E7000 for EtherCAT.

One can think of one card supporting 1 drive. Or 2 stepper drives. And use multiple cards

In linuxcnc 2.10 there is 64-bit integers, so no risk for encoders overflowing. 32-bit isn't quite enough at least for spindles.

Is it just an idea, or are you going to do it?
.

Hey thats pretty awesome. Love the monarch also!

Is that using HAl-Core?

Do you have a github? Im looking to do something similar to this but with a custom GUI.

Hello Hakan and thank you for all your work.
If I want to create a small PCB in order to add encoders, compatible with LinuxCNC, which version of your project would you advise in order to modify it?

Thanks

I am using hal only with a mesa card to control a monarch lathe spindle. (so encoder, 2 analog drives and some i/o)



Works great.
sam

I solved this on my Zorin machine by:
1. copying the ec_master.ko module from /lib/modules/(uname -r)/ethercat/master/ into /lib/modules/(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/ethercat
2. returning to the install folder
3. running make clean followed by sudo depmod -a
Hope this helps.

Im looking into this as well, is there a clear cut way of running/interfacing HAL with a custom software?

I guess the real question is how to separate HAL from linuxcnc.

Aha! I knew there had to be a relatively easy way. Thanks!