Eric, thank you for your detail explanation!
I happened to have a USB from Jon Elson, so I may as well start using
it, though my application
can work just fine with just a parport in an output mode.
Ideally I would like to have already made configuration for a parport
which I could just apply without
learning how to use HAL. I think many people would like the same thing
unless once really like meet and
overcome challenges. In my case I just want to make the machine to work.
Alex
Eric H. Johnson wrote:
Alex,
So you are back to EMC2? :) As I said earlier, a good place to start is the
hal tutorial in the user's manual. See:
http://www.linuxcnc.org/docs/EMC2_User_Manual.pdf
You really need to go through the tutorial to understand how hal works, and
in the process how to configure your system.
While configuration is not as simple nor much like many other CNC systems,
it is extremely powerful and flexible, hence allows you to do things which
very few other systems can.
I have not done much with EMC and steppers, so there may be a better
reference, however look at the univstep configuration
(config/univstep/univstep_io.hal). You will see commands such as newsig
and linksp. Those are the commands which are creating signals, assigning
signals to pins, etc. in this case for the Pico systems board. Specifically:
newsig Xminlim bit
newsig Xmaxlim bit
newsig Xhome bit
Which is assigning signals for the home and end of travel limits for the X
axis.
linksp Xminlim = ppmc.0.din.01.in
linksp Xmaxlim = ppmc.0.din.02.in
linksp Xhome = ppmc.0.din.00.in
Which links physical inputs to the above signals.
linksp Xminlim = axis.0.neg-lim-sw-in
linksp Xmaxlim = axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in
linksp Xhome = axis.0.home-sw-in
Which links those signals to the respective axis pins. IOW,
ppmc.0.din.01.in = Xminlim = axis.0.neg-lim-sw-in
The same basic principles apply for any system, but the I/O has to be
assigned based on what drivers, etc. are loaded. In the univstep
configuration, they are found in the file univstep_load.hal. The most
important one to notice is loadrt hal_ppmc which is loading the pico
system driver. For the parallel port there will be a similar command such as
loadrt hal_parport. Once the driver is loaded you can start assigning
signals, etc. to it. This is where halcmd comes in handy, because you can
run a configuration such as stepper_inch, then run halcmd to show the
available signals, pins and parameters, and hence what is available, which
determines what you can assign and link to.
Regards,
Eric
I tried to read all the relevant information regarding
setting up Hal and ini files for configuring the parport in
ouput mode according to the manual.
For examle I couldn't find any reference for setting up home switches.
Configuring appears very complex to me, though in another cnc
control programs I tried for Dos and Windows, it was a snap
(excluding TCNC).
In the manual there are 2 modes of operations of the parport
- input and output.
In the output mode it will take in 5 inputs - 4 can be
designated for homing axices and 1 for limit switch.
Why don't you provide a sample Hal and INI configurations for
these 2 modes of the parport, to make life easier for people
like me who are having a hard time trying to figure it out?
-
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