I do have a MESA 7i92H that works with LinuxCNC on a dual boot PC. I have to switch to standard parallel port for MACH3 or use a USB Smooth Stepper (more expensive than the 7i92H). I've also had my mill running with the BeagleBone Black, MachineKit and the Xylotex Cape. There are issues with the cape, not with the BBB that had me change to a PC. The BBB with Xylotex uses the PRUs for step/dir for up to 4 axis. It can also take on Encoder input Although there is a serial port the CAN bus port is taken up by the Xylotex cape and I think SPI is too. Partly, IIRC, because the HDMI also uses much of the I/O. There are LCD displays for the BBB but once again they take up all the important I/O and support is minimal. This screen was done in Python. http://www.autoartisans.com/MachineKit/BB-W1-LCD4.jpg Once you remove the HDMI and change which pins on the BBB can be used for step/dir and spindle encoder the potential of using SPI or I2C for keypad matrix and LCD display along with at least one Serial Port and one CAN port for CANopen you can address MODbus VFDs and CANopen based hardware for tool changers and other peripherals. That means the basic Machinekit port to the BBB wouldn't have to be touched, the HAL and INI files would take care of remapping the step/dir pins but the AXIS user interface would have to go. A new interface that handled say 48 buttons, a graphical LCD display and an encoder knob like I have on my ELS could provide the basics. In fact, to start with and to not have to build large amounts of hardware, I'd probably use my ELS with a 20x4 character screen (instead of the 20x2) and the 35 buttons along with the MPG knob. For example: http://www.autoartisans.com/ELS/photos/ELS110D.JPG http://www.autoartisans.com/MachineKit/FourLines2.jpg This photo shows the RS232 connection and if the Y axis step/dir pulses aren't used and the CAN driver chip is installed I've had it operating as a CANopen User Interface Device. http://www.autoartisans.com/ELS/photos/ELSBottom.jpg A prototype cape that has headers to plug in place of the PIC CPU on my ELS could be the starting point as in the past I've created companion boards that plug into jumper the header on the bottom of the ELS. http://www.autoartisans.com/MachineKit/IO_Interface-1.jpg To expand a companion board with a ribbon cable to the 40 pin PIC IC socket then gives access to all the I/O and the header. The BBB could plug into that. And finally, since the BBB still has Ethernet it runs MachineKit but can perhaps talk MESA Ethernet protocol to a PC running LinuxCNC or MachineKit for the full blown AXIS display. So you get the best of both worlds. A small LCD/Keypad/MPG based module not much bigger than a DRO for pseudo manual operation of the mill but also attach a laptop or roll up a PC and you have full blown CNC. This is all still kicking the tires. Maybe a PIC32 would be an easier solution. John Dammeyer From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of mngr Sent: February-29-20 2:46 AM To: Machinekit Subject: [Machinekit] Re: PICnc with Machine Kit. Hi, In my humble opinion it should have both SPI and Ethernet connection. I do not see any difference in the real-time capabilities of these two protocols. cost would go up a bit, but this project could receive more attention form already existing communities. Maybe it could re-use the MESA protocol over ethernet, allowing for mutiple slaves to be connected, reusing work on the machinekit side, and attracting the attention of the LinuxCNC community. I am in europe, I cannot buy MESA because it came out way too expensive. There already are some open source motor driver, like Odrive or VESC. Maybe we could reuse something from here (BLDC are not stepper, i know, but hey, stepper are way easyer!) How hard do you think it is to move the MESA protocol from an FPGA, VHDL, to a microcontroller? I would use something like an ATSAME54, which is a cortex m4. I feel that atmel start libraries are well made, but I am not a seasoned developer. I can work on this, but I need the guide of a experienced one. Regards, mngr
Il giorno venerdì 28 febbraio 2020 16:11:23 UTC+1, Mr Greg ha scritto: @ JohnD Re your OP The answer is yes. I have been using a Picnc + RPi2 -Jessy OS combo with machinekit for several yrs. Looking to upgrade/resurect/or move on if necessary. I'm personally not the chap to do the detail code, but am working with a dev who has an interest and can contribute some limited time and effort. I am currently exploring Pi4 + Buster with a view to either Mesa or Picnc? TBD @ Tomp I understand you have had Picnc successfully running on a Pi3 ? I can't seem to get it to behave on a Pi3. Not with Jessie + MK anyways. All motors just spiral out of control soon as MK is started :( All the SPI and dma addressing looks compatible They are both 2837 Any ideas? @ All By way of a little history. I did quite a bit of testing & verification for Kinsa' on the original Picnc v1. ( circa 2012/13) This was on a Pic764 which had potential to run faster with more IO I'm not sure of how much info there is left for that version. I may have some stuff archived? Cheers MrGreg On Thursday, 27 February 2020 06:42:41 UTC, John Dammeyer wrote: This project seems to have lapsed 5 years ago. https://github.com/kinsamanka/PICnc-V2/wiki Any interest in resurrecting it? John Dammeyer "ELS! Nothing else works as well for your Lathe" Automation Artisans Inc. www dot autoartisans dot com -- website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: https://github.com/machinekit --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Machinekit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/228f471a-3292-4373-9fe8-08bf92f8fd3c%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/228f471a-3292-4373-9fe8-08bf92f8fd3c%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: https://github.com/machinekit --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Machinekit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/17f901d5ef2d%24e86ecd00%24b94c6700%24%40autoartisans.com.
