I used to work in an environment that required high reliability. Hot-swap spares were the norm and that includes software. If you were updating software, it was done on a second (or sometimes even third) device to ensure that you always had 1 working production device and often a working spare as well. This philosophy is required in some industries, but many have moved away from it due to the cost. For a long time, downtime was forbidden. Now consultants or MBAs model the cost of downtime and can often justify it as critical savings in the short term. My local hospital recently rolled out a software update that brought down all their OR suites for over a week due to a driver issue.

I've been using Debian (and offshoots) for over 20 years and *nix before that. Original sysadmins were taught the importance of backups before updates as the OS itself doesn't provide a mechanism to roll back. There is an opportunity to provide better instructions to users on how to migrate a system safely, but it is a lot of work and there is always some risk.

I have linuxcnc running in a NixOS VM for simulations and might move my main controller to this one day.

Play in the tool is not good for milling i would say. If you can feel it by hand it will probably not do the "trick" very nicely.
The machine itself looks interesting for a hobby project, but I would have thought it is much cheaper. Unless in running condition and known what it can do.
Seems more a drilling machine than milling machine if the spindle head is similar to the manual drill machines I found in the picture search.

If you pay everything in advance incl. shipping and get the transport organized, I send a machine your way . (lol).
www.acutek-tw.com/products/detail/96
rodw would point out that those FANUC electrics can get pricey when damaged and in Bolivia it might become a nightmare to replace those. 

p.s. no idea what he is asking and if it still for sale....

thank you vm

When I updated I just started with a "fresh" hard drive. Then i do not have to deal with anything other than swapping SATA connection to get back from "experiment" to working.

My biggest problem is to keep some proper documentation (always bites me).
Trying to at least put a lot of comments into my hal and ini files.

Rykagon wrote:

Hello All,

- which Linux distro to load on the Pi 4.

 

Sounds like a fun project. 
Download the SD card  image at this page .
That should be a good start Pi4 + Mesa 7i76EU + TB6600. I've played a bit with the Pi, never used it in a retrofit, but I read people doing it regularly on this forum.

Ah sorry I mixed it up with the outputs from the 7i84u card. At first I wanted to buy two of them but I saw in the manual that TB1 PINs 1-4 are responsable to feed the I/O on TB2 and TB3. I don't think I can switch off the outputs via E-Stop with this card. Besides that the 7iA0 is beefy with 2.5A and it has enough I/O so I only need one.

The 6 general purpose outputs on the 7I97T are identical to the 7IA0 outputs.
That is: uncommitted polarized NMOS SSR outputs, all isolated from each other.

 

I can take a look at this later this week

There is an entire series of threads on doing just this. I did a retrofit on mine years ago and it runs every day cutting custom parts. Works great. Forest (see his posts) also sells a retrofit board and computer that makes it plug and play. He also has spare parts available.

Hi all (and hopefully PCW),

I am retrofitting a large gantry mill (dual X drives, Y, Z, with A/B planned later) from an old PMC DCX-AT200 controller to LinuxCNC. The analog AMC servo drives will be kept and driven by a 7i97T.

For absolute position feedback I have six RLS LA11 ( readheads (BiSS-C variant A, up to 2.2 MHz, 26-bit position + E/W + 6-bit CRC) that will read AS10 magnetic scales mounted on the axes.

My plan:
- 7i97T: 6x +/-10V analog out + incremental motor encoders
- 7i74 on the DB25 expansion port: 8x BiSS-C channels (6 used, 2 spare)
- 7i84 on the onboard SSerial port for tool changer I/O (so SSerial should stay active)

Is there an existing bitfile for the 7i97T with the 7i74 configured as 8x BiSS, or could one be generated? And is there anything I should watch out for regarding BiSS clock rates with cable runs of 5-10 m on a large gantry?

I found the working BiSS channel config for a 26-bit encoder ( at 2 MHz) in the 6i25+7i85 thread, so I mainly need the matching bitfile for the 7i97T+7i74 combination.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Great, thank you. So I will not burn the card nor do I have to follow the traces to figure it out myself.
Time to go shopping in the Mesa store.

May I ask you another question?
Did I understand it correctly that the 6 outputs on the 7i97t share one 24V+ (for example) which comes from the other connector?

PIN+ must always be the most positive pin.

PIN+ is the NMOS drain connection and PIN-  the NMOS source connection.

So yes:

Sourcing connection:

+24V --> PIN+  --> PIN- --> load --> 24V Common

Sinking connection:

+24V --> load --> PIN+ --> PIN- --> 24V Common.

Hey folks, I'm a german guy who lives in Paraguay. At first I want to say thank you for LinuxCNC and all the projects around
it. Wow, my head is exploding because of learning all the stuff. image missing /media/kunena/emoticons/grin.png

I am currently retrofitting an Edel Micromat 205HS CNC nibbler.

I want to buy a 7i97t because of the analog Perma Drive drivers and servos (A,A/,B,B/,0,0/, +-10V).

For all the sensors, switches and contactors I'd like to buy a 7iA0.

My question to you would be:

The machine has originally I/O cards from Labod and the 24V power supply for the output mosfets can be switched off with E-
Stop.

I want to do the same with the 7iA0 but I do not understand the outputs in the manual.

There it says

PIN 1 OUT -00-
PIN 2 OUT -00+
PIN 3 OUT -01-
PIN 4 OUT -01+
and so on.
Can I connect 24V+ to PIN 2, 4,... and so on so the card connects this PINs to PIN 1, 3,... and so on? Or is it the
other way round? As to speak, does the card connect the -PIN with the +PIN next to it when an output is switched on? If that's
the case, do I connect 24V+ to 2, 4,... or to 1, 3,...?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Greetings
Dennis

Step config files, where xyz jog does not work.
Thanks