I have LCNC running on a Pi4 with the wired Ethernet to the 7i92H to two different BoBs. One of them, the Chinese one, will have an identical friend in a month or so. (assuming it ever arrives). That's the BoB I reverse engineered and for which I now have a schematic.
The reason it was easy to make work is because I downloaded the Pi4 LCNC image file and created the MicroSD card. Then copied over my PC based .ini and .hal files for the Mesa 7i92H and tweaked them for the Pi. This all works. I even have a CAN hat installed and send messages for the beginnings of a tool changer module and some user buttons and indicators on the AXIS screen. But I also get the latency message 'once' on this system and have no idea why. However I think once I get the second BoB I'll dig further into that. The advantage of the Mesa 7i92H is that for MACH3 users or beginners it's still just standard parallel ports. And so yes. Inputs are limited. And yes you can't do closed loop servos. And yes it's limited on I/O for complicated tool changers. And yes those are all really important for those who want really precision machines. But we're talking hobby types here. People who on some MACH systems haven't even bothered with limit or home switches. BTW, I've also done a BeagleBone Black with a cape and MachineKit and actually moved motors on my mill. But that cape required NO limit switches. I had to cut traces and change some things on the cape to get NC to work. And when MachineKit support vanished so did the BBB. So for those hobby types I think the Tormach interface (which originally used MACH3) would be more attractive. But I don't even know where to start to create a Pi4 based Tormach LCNC. So... If whoever put together the Pi4 LCNC with the AXIS screen would do a Tormach port, I likely could do the rest as far as the HAL and INI files for the COTS BoBs. I'd even put together a machine drawing on how to connect. Could almost run it on my mill except that I use the DB25-1 for Machine Enable and DB25-17 for a charge pump. The smaller machines and hobby types would likely use stepper motors and neither of those absolutely require Enable or Charge Pump since the Chinese BoB doesn't have either as an input. The Chinese BoB uses DB25-1 as an optional 0-10V out for VFD control (PWM with filter). It also has a relay output on DB25-17 for something like Mist or Flood Coolant. Most hobby users would likely use VFD and coolant or just the relay for Spindle ON/OFF with belt changes or manual turn a knob speed. Now my existing Spindle motor is an AC Servo and I use Step/Dir but it does also handle 0-10V. The second Parallel port output on the 7i92 goes to the Chinese BoB and there I have the quadrature encoding for power tapping. So yes, if you have an 8 axis spindle or whatever with ancient DC servos, resolvers etc on a 5000# piece of old iron then the Pi4 with 7i92H isn't for you. But lately the push on some groups is on for the ClearPath or other step-servos (quite expensive compared to AC servos but what the heck). These people buy a new Precision Mathews mini mill and buy a turnkey with diagrams CNC controller locked into whatever that manufacturer will give them. I'd just like to see LCNC there with this marvelous support group instead. John > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Keller [mailto:keller...@gmail.com] > Sent: January-26-23 7:01 AM > To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) > Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Running PathPilot on non-Tormach Machines > > On Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 8:24 AM <ken.stra...@sympatico.ca> wrote: > > > To me this is the minimum level of magic required to make a commercially > > viable product. The vast majority of potential users are uncomfortable (or > > don't want to bother) with manually modifying configuration files. Of course > > the power of LinuxCNC is due to the possibility of configuring things for > > all sorts of hardware. Without magic the flexibility means that it will > > never be mainstream. > > Nobody wants to give up the flexibility though. The problem that lcnc > has is aptly summarized in this thread where someone gave up because > they wanted to use an Rpi4 and ethercat. That's fine, and there are > plenty of people that have ethercat running with lcnc, maybe even on a > Rpi4. But both the Rpi4 and ethercat require a bit of messing around, > I think, and neither are really mainline lcnc. Getting a 3 axis > running on a Mesa board on a PC with decent latency (another sticking > point, unfortunately) is trivial. Someone mentioned 4 axis. The > problem with that is that everyone has their own 4th axis. This is > also the problem with lcnc in general. I would say more than 90% of > the problems I see with people having trouble setting up lcnc is they > have a totally nonstandard install that wouldn't work with any other > software either. So they can't get it to work with lcnc, buy > something standard, and go install Mach. And then badmouth lcnc any > time the subject comes up. > > The people that want to make lcnc more popular could do something > about it, I think. Define a set of hardware that works and make their > own distribution with only one user interface. It doesn't surprise me > that nobody wants to do this thankless task. > Eric Keller > Boalsburg, Pennsylvania > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
