I have successfully used PWM on 24V DC bang-bang valves with position feedback. However there is huge spool-overlap to contend with which isn't a problem in my case because I use a microcontroller and my PID-loop is easy to modify. It will never be a servo-valve but it works fine if all you need to do is hit a target-count.

There are many applications that can benefit from programmable positioning but the cost of full-blown servo-hydraulics is not justifiable.

Regards,
Craig

Dell Optiplex 960. /proc/cpuinfo
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz

Parallel port. The md5sum test passes.

I have backed up everything.
/proc/meminfo MemTotal: 3071164 kB

Are you telling me that upgrading past 2.7.15 may not work?

I think I have identified my USB drive from dmesg

[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.4-9-rtai-686-pae
root=UUID=d6024873-2470-49d1-992d-a484c0ca8fdf ro initrd=/install/gtk/initrd.gz
lapic quiet rootdelay=5
[ 2.660091] usb usb1: Product: EHCI Host Controller
[ 2.660093] usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae ehci_hcd

Thank you. I will attempt to make the USB on my 2.7.15 Linux box.

Thank you, sir!

While I've got your attention I have another burning question, though slightly off topic.

As I mentioned I've been out of the loop for several years now. When I was last here plasmac (pre qtplasmac) was in heavy development and rpi4 support was "expiremental" and plasmac a no go.

Is the rpi a viable option now for a plasma table?

Look honestly unless there is some feature you absolutely must have that is the later versions I would stick with what you have. Even more so if you are using the parallel port. As the later installs do not use an RTAI kernel, which is best for parallel ports.
I think JT runs a lathe that is still on a version of Linuxcnc that runs on Ubuntu 8 or something like that back when the project was called emc2.
Unless you have a download of the image file that passes the md5sum test you are on the road to nowhere. Get that sorted first if you want to proceed.
Before anything back up your Linuxcnc folder that is in your home folder so you don't lose any of your Configs if things go bad.

It may help if you can give some info regarding the machine, are you using a parallel port or not, the CPU on the computer you wish to use, I don't want to look up the specs of the computer you are using as the same model can have different CPU, memory HDD and so forth.

Oh hang on you have a working Linuxcnc install ?

If so you can use that to make the USB stick.

This is a very comprehensive article on how to do that
www.cyberciti.biz/faq/creating-a-bootabl...k-on-a-debian-linux/

Or you can search for WSL dd to USB.
WSL is windows subsystem for linux

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

The image needs to be written to the USB stick byte by byte. The ISO format does not have a partition scheme.
I would have looked into why the program wouldn't run

A properly written USB stick for booting Linuxcnc does not have a "partition" scheme.
I think Belana Etcher has a "raw mode" that writes the image file to the USB stick as win32diskimager would.

Hello,

Since you don't describe your detailed workflow, it's difficult to answer correctly.
There may be an offset entered in the tool table, but it's not actually necessary, since the tool length doesn't matter with this procedure.
For my part, I have put together a few routines that do a manual tool change with automatic measurement.
The whole thing assumes that there is a tool in the spindle at the beginning, regardless of whether it is actually used or not, and that this is measured and then used to measure the workpiece height.

I hope I'm doing this correctly.

Many greetings, Frank

That did not boot. I am trying to boot from DVD again. Is there any upgrade path from 2.7.15 to the modern versions that does involve booting an ISO? This desktop is apparently a legacy BIOS.

Unfortunately, "The code execution cannot proceed because Microsoft.UI.Windowing.Core.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem." It did not.

Trusting CoPilot, I am burning the ISO to USB again with MBR partition scheme.

Looks fine, will work just fine.

TL;DR: Can I wire these little TMC2226 (or similar) 3d printer stepper drivers to a 7i96?

Before you laugh I know it seems like a silly matchup. I've been out of the cnc game for a few years now but now I have some projects on mind some I'm trying to plan to reuse some old parts. I'm still fairly out of the loop on the advances made in linuxcnc and hardware since.

I want to build another one of these light weight "3d printed" cncs . By default these machines used arduino/grbl based controllers , but I enjoy linuxcnc so I fully intend on on using linuxcnc instead.

I have a NIB Mesa 7i96 that I never put into production image missing /media/kunena/emoticons/sick.png.  I have some raspberry pi 4 Bs laying around from old projects. I would need to find new stepper drivers. These tiny stepper drivers are proven to work fine for these machines. I like the idea of cost and especially space savings with these little chips, and how the original design of the above linked machine integrates their electronics into the gantry. 

So can I just wire these TMC2226s into the 7i96 as a drop in replacement for something  like my old TB6600 s?

I don't quite understand yet if these little chips with all their pins, and uart mode, are a different animal than the old stepper drivers I used before.

PS. I'm excited to find out that there is an official release for the rpi. I've already flashed it and have been poking around in it.