On Saturday 19 December 2009, mike walker wrote:
>EMC2 looks interesting. but after fooling with it for a few days on two
> different boxes it seems to me that there are issues that need to be
> addressed.
>
>Issue One.  On both of the boxes I am using there is a common problem. I
> tell it to shut down and it hangs on the last screen untill i hit the
> power switch. these two boxes were loaded with two different downloads of
> EMC2. Both downloads were told to check themselves before being told to
> load onto the hard drive.
>
This is intentional.  Due to timing conflicts generated by the power 
management bits and pieces that bit of code to actually do the shutdown has 
been removed from emc capable kernels.  I don't consider it a huge problem as 
the power buttons response is instant when it has reached that state on both 
boxes I have emc installed on.

For a long time the screen blankers & monitor power functions were also 
disabled, but I see on my 6.06 box that they are now working.

>the first machine is a four processor intel chip. the second is a 2
> processor intel chip. any ideas?

I don't believe that RTAI is SMP aware, but won't lay my hand on the book to 
say that.

>Issue two. And to me much bigger. EMC2 basicly supports 6 I/O boards out of
> the box. Personaly I do not want to spend a thousand bucks buying boards,
> daughter boards, and softwhere to see if i can control a piece of
> machinery. If i was doing it to sell comercialy that is one thing. but for
> what I do in my garage, not so much. what i need is a PCI I/O board with
> at least 24 and preferibly 48 I/O points that i can wire to a opto
> isolator (if i think i need it) or directly to a ttl level switch if i
> think i do not. 

Futurelec, an Aussie concern, sells such a board, with 3 complete 82C55's on 
it for a total of 72 I/O line's.  However there are no prefab linux drivers 
for it.  I wrote some almost bash script-ish things for one of them but found 
it wasn't as fast as a std parport, or an add-in card.  That I believe was 
partially the fault of the method of hardware access that high level stuff 
must do to gain access to the hardware at relatively low memory addresses.  A 
competent C coder can get around that, but then the normal linux \kernel 
IRQ's disturb the motors motions.  I never tried to make rtai work with it, 
which is probably the answer to the speed problems I had. I simply don't know 
enough about that aspect so I didn't even try.

The hookup is not back panel, but is a 34 pin floppy cable connector on the 
card times 3.  Protect the cables where they come out the adjacent open back 
panel slot and they should work just fine.

Be aware that while they advertise their prices in USD, my card was billed in 
AUD plus a conversion fee, which added about 30% to the cost.

For ease of use, because there are drivers, there are other cards available 
from the folks here that while costing a bit more, are infinitely easier to 
use.  They will speak up I hope.

> Why do i want all this? I have been designing machines for almost 40
> years. I have been fiddling with EMC2 for a couple of days. Linux? same
> thing. I want SOME options built in. Like a decent I/O board, maybe some
> closer error checking. (The first machine (windows based with linux
> sharing updated ok.) i started the second machine up, connected to the
> web, it reported that there were 11 updates. it loaded 4 of them and
> choked on 7, got to wonder what gives.
>
>
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
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