Gosh... I didn't mean to open a can of worms!

Thank you very much tommylight for your suggested fix. Unfortunately when I add this line to my hal file, linuxcnc fails with the following...

"./Bridgeport.hal:313: Pin 'hm2_7i96s.0.ssr.00.out-00' was already linked to signal 'estop-out'"

(aside: line 313 is where I added tommylight's line)

I have been reading up on the HAL interface, and I have to admit that I am still quite confused. about how these things are intended to work? It is clear that they do, and for that I am thankful. It is just very hard for a newbie such as myself to make sense of.

Rod,
I appreciate all of your helpful literature and the videos you have made on various linuxcnc topics.

When you say "Its pretty well described in the man page and there was a hal tutorial about it on the forum." it would be *super* helpful if you would link the articles/threads you are referencing. Otherwise I really have no way of knowing which particular man page or forum thread you are referring to. There are a number of forum threads which seem to fit your description and which also appear to contradict one another?

I wonder if you are referencing the estop-latch man page? If so, I have read it, and I do not feel that the man page does a very good job of describing estop-latch at all! It does not explain estop-latch's purpose, when it should be used and when it should not. Further, it does not provide any usage examples. The man page does describe the options, and I expect it does so completely, but it does not explain any of them. I found it quite cryptic actually. I am still entirely confused about what problem estop-latch is intended to solve.

I understand there is some debate about whether having the hard estop signal run through linuxCNC is "compliant" or not. I must admit that I am completely in the dark as to what standard we are complying with, so I have no opinion. While I do care about safety, compliance is not a issue for me right now in my home shop.

All I am trying to achieve here is to have "hm2_7i96s.0.ssr.00.out-00" go high when "hm2_7i96s.0.inm.00.input-03" goes low.

Seems like it ought to be simple... but there is clearly some piece of the larger picture that I am missing, because it is appears that it is not simple?

Thank you for your help.

Bill

Quite right. A 25% antifreeze solution is probably a good approach but I would suspect there is just so much chelating ability for that dilute a solution. Compound that with the likelyhood most people are going to replenish it with tap water, there in lies the big mistake.

Again your quite right. I guess my real focus was to give others a heads up on a possible fix without tearing it appart.

regards

Most of the spindle manufacturers I've delt with recommend a 25% solution of some kind of antifreeze. Not so much to prevent freezing but for the additives for corrosion inhibition and pump seal lubrication that are included with them. While most don't specify an automotive product, they generally are not much different from standard car antifreeze. (Using straight tap water in most kinds of cooling systems is asking for trouble.)

 
 

While I focus on open source software, I'm at least glad to see a one-time payment perpetual license at a reasonable price (no subscriptions!) and linux support (even if it is AppImage..). 

Good luck.

Hi Peter / Mesa Support,
I am setting up a machine using a 7i76e and I need a custom bitfile for my expansion board configuration.
My hardware layout is as follows:

• Motherboard: 7i76e
• Expansion Port P1: 7i78 (Step/Dir expansion)
• Expansion Port P2: 7i89 (Multi-channel encoder board)

Could you please generate a pre-built file (and corresponding file) for this specific configuration?
Thank you for your help!

I'm sure there others out there who have or are going to run into the same problem I had.  In the spirit of sharing I'll give you my remedy which was much easier than I thought it would be.
Let me preface this by saying my 2.2 kw spindle was not allowing any flow through it from the cooling pump.  I tried blowing air through it, reaming the port and even acitic acid which didn't seem to do anything.  I was getting prepared to do a tear down which I really didn't want to get into.  I read everything I could on the net and as a last ditch effort I bought a quart of CLR descaler.  I managed to force some into circuit, shut the pump off, and left it over night.  Next morning I turned the pump on once more, not expecting anything to have changed.  To my great surprize the pump took off linke a race horse and started pumping out the CLR and all the crud it removed.  
The lesson here is that it was my fault for not using deionized water and using tap water.  Big mistake!
As I don't use the machine a lot I was always replenishing the system with tap water, about the worste thing you could do.

Recommendation.:  Use only DI water,  If possible make it a closed loop system.
Good Luck!

Disclosure first: I'm the developer and Takshak is a commercial product.
I'm posting in this section because the rules allow it — mods,
please move this if it belongs elsewhere.

What it is: a CAM package for 3-axis work and 4th-axis rotary. You bring
a model, it finds the features, you pick operations and tools, and it
posts g-code. It runs entirely on your own machine — no cloud account,
no internet needed after activation, nothing phoning home while you cut.

Posts it ships with, eighteen in all:

Shop and DIY controls — LinuxCNC · Mach3 / Mach4 · GRBL · Masso ·
Centroid · Tormach

Industrial controls — Fanuc (generic) · Haas · Mazak · Doosan ·
Brother Speedio · Mitsubishi · Fadal · Siemens 840D · Heidenhain TNC ·
Okuma OSP · Fagor · Hurco

Seventeen of those eighteen also ship a ready-made inch variant, so you
pick your control and your units and you're done. The exception is
Heidenhain TNC: it writes Klartext, and I won't ship a Klartext inch
post until I've checked the TNC feed-word convention against a real
control. I'd rather ship one less than ship a guess.

Also worth knowing:

- Rotary is a first-class part of it, not an afterthought bolted on.
- It runs on Windows and on Linux. The Linux build is a single AppImage.
- It's a one-time perpetual licence, not a subscription. $199 for the next 30 days, $399 later. If it's no good, there's 30 days to get your money
back, no argument.

What it isn't: it's CAM, not CAD. And it's new — 1.0.3 went on sale this
week. I'd rather say that plainly than have someone find out.

Do you have any real life examples?
Fanuc post processor?
Is there a trial version?

So IF I were able to get tool offset for 5 axis in CNCToolkit and run in trivkins.....would not having the TWP give same results?

Thanks for help here...I am a little over my head here but need to learn..

Perpetual License, Automatic Feature Recognition CAM for an introductory price of $199 (until 1st October).
3 Axis and 4th Rotary Axis
I know its not open source but was advised by a mod that I can put this here.
Sales will help us open more engineering sw that everyone can afford. Thanks.

TakshakCAM



www.youtube.com/channel/UCyS5R0FFEQUt3HwT-UgcNTQ