Hello forum

I've set up a new control PC and switched to EtherCAT. I'm using Leadshine EL8 components. Everything works perfectly except for the missing Tool cone.

If I have no tools loaded, the tool cone is displayed correctly.
 

When I have loaded a tool, the tool cone is missing..
 

Despite reviewing the installation instructions multiple times, I cannot find the error. 

 

I try to install an old serial 3m touchscreen but the cursor jumps randomly and the calibrator gives false clicks and is impossible to calibrate. I tried this in a debian 12.
Any help would be appreciated.

Geht mir genauso.
Nur dass das Forum fast einen 1/2 Tag nicht erreichbar ist. Und das jeden tag

Hallo Hakan I supose that You are talking about this commands :sudo systemctl enable ethercat.service
sudo systemctl start ethercat.service
sudo systemctl status ethercat.service
sudo chmod 666 /dev/EtherCAT0
I try them before and also today but with no lack.
But I see that Oriental Motor unit catch a fault whenever I plug rj45 eth.
That situation never happen under twincat.
After summarize everything I wonder what do TwinCat that works properly .
I will try watch history fault in the driver ,maybe it can help.

I decided to remove the PCI LAN card, leaving only the MB LAN card, then deleted all the connections and remade a new setup as suggested by tommylight.
After restarting the system 5 times (yes, 5), finally linuxcnc "sees" the mesa card, and axys is revived.
I'll do some test in the next days, and see what happen.
If needed, I could try to reinstall the PCI card and re-connect to my LAN.
 

Strange because in the attached parameter file the P3-18 is also set to 0x1000h.

Of course, the first thing I did was upload your *.par file to the servo. But there was a problem: the firmware versions didn't match. Your file was 01.645, and my drive was 01.644. ASDA software did the conversion, but the DI didn't work.

I found a solution: parameter P3-18 must be set to 0x1000, then the inputs start working from linuxcnc. This works for me, perhaps this will also help someone with the problem of non-functioning DI.

@NWE
Thanks for the clarification — that helps a lot, and I appreciate you explicitly calling out the difference in perspective.Your comments are very helpful in terms of transport robustness (discrete I/O vs EtherCAT vs Modbus), and that’s valuable input for narrowing down implementation options.Just to make sure the discussion is clear for readers: when we talk about a PLC supervising LinuxCNC, we’re referring to logical authority over machine state, sequencing, and operator workflow, rather than mastership of the physical communication layer.As you noted, with EtherCAT today LinuxCNC often ends up as the technical bus master, even in architectures where the PLC is the higher-level controller issuing commands and consuming status. These two roles tend to get conflated, but they’re separate concerns in industrial systems.Your insight on which transports have proven more or less fragile in practice is very useful, even though the PLC→LinuxCNC authority model itself is something we’ll have to implement largely on our side.

My system is running beautifully. My goal is to make "Running LinuxCNC on a Raspbery Pi5 using the Byte2Bot daughter board" simpler, more successful with fewer "Gotchas" than other options.

Marcos DC wrote:

@NWE
In your experience, when LinuxCNC is treated as a subordinate motion controller,
 
 

I can see potentially doing it this way, and I agree, for your use case, this must be necessary, however, I have not used LinuxCNC as subordinate to a PLC in any project. I have used LinuxCNC controlling 6 PLCs via mqtt messaging on a larger project. Above all that in the chain of command I have the safety system, and due to the nature of the system, we have one single discrete signal wired from an output in the safety system to an input on one of the PLC's, through which LinuxCNC reads whether the safety system has disabled the entire plant. During most abnormalities, the program running in LinuxCNC initiates a controlled shutdown of the plant. If the safety system has tripped, it is a foregone conclusion, the plant is already shut down.

Most of the machines on that project are interdependent in various ways, so we have not included the capability to disable part of the system while other parts are in operation, except for the fact that each machine has individual lockout switches. However, It is not possible to complete the automatic startup sequence programmed in LinuxCNC when the locked-out machine fails to start. It does have a service mode where the repair tech has start/stop control of each individual machine during down time.

I can see doing it the other way, where the PLC commands LinuxCNC, but I have not done it that way yet.

Marcos DC wrote:

@NWE
Following up on the interface question above:Given that LinuxCNC does not currently provide a standardized, PLC-facing external API, 

Sorry, I was misunderstanding you in this respect. I was on a different page, thinking low level I/O.

Marcos DC wrote:

@NWE
Following up on the interface question above:Given that LinuxCNC does not currently provide a standardized, PLC-facing external API, I’m trying to understand what has proven to be the least fragile approach in real production systems.In your experience, when LinuxCNC is treated as a subordinate motion controller, what has held up better long-term:
• discrete I/O with explicit handshaking, or
• a register-based interface (e.g. Modbus TCP/RTU or similar)?I’m mainly interested in maintainability and field robustness rather than theoretical capability.

I consider discrete I/O or ethercat similarly less fragile, and modbus has been quite fragile from my experience.

For keeping it simple, I think I would look at discrete signals using Mesa cards or maybe ethercat. Ethercat is somewhat more complicated to get started, but you get to replace all that discrete wiring with one robust ethernet connection, which you can not route through an ethernet switch, but I saw Beckhoff has ethercat hubs for this purpose.

I used to like modbus but the more I use it, the more I despise it. Compared to the other options, modbus seems slower and less reliable. Probably depends on the application. I am moving away from modbus entirely.

If you want RS232 or RS485, ask someone else, my opinion is it can be done (I use them if I have to interface with something that gives me no other choice) but... its a pain. Except... Mesa has what I think runs on RS422 called SSerial (SmartSerial) which I think is a joy to use. It is stable and it is plug-and-play. To use that, you start with a Mesa board that has SSerial host, then you can connect additional I/O SSerial daughter cards to it via SSerial.

If going with ethercat, LinuxCNC does only master that I'm aware or. You would want to use a PLC that exposes an ethercat slave to LinuxCNC for transferring data/commands between PLC and ethercat. What I mean, is the ethercat link would be LinuxCNC = master, PLC = slave, however, linuxcnc would be listening on this connection for commands from its real master, the PLC. I admit I'm a bit of a newby with ethercat, been using it barely a year. Been tinkering with linuxcnc 10+ years and just recently majorly included it in my toolset.

Whether discrete or ethercat, this would amount to hal pins that you would connect to control signals in the hal configuration text file(s). How clean the implementation would be would probably depend a lot on how well you organize the hal files.

When I'm programming my LinuxCNC "plc" controllers, I'm doing most of it in a linux program that looks and works a lot like notepad with some additional bells and whistles.

@NWE
Following up on the interface question above:Given that LinuxCNC does not currently provide a standardized, PLC-facing external API, I’m trying to understand what has proven to be the least fragile approach in real production systems.In your experience, when LinuxCNC is treated as a subordinate motion controller, what has held up better long-term:
• discrete I/O with explicit handshaking, or
• a register-based interface (e.g. Modbus TCP/RTU or similar)?I’m mainly interested in maintainability and field robustness rather than theoretical capability.