Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
You know, I'm not quite sure why I didn't simply decide to use Gmail from the start. I use it for my main address these days, and love having everything available wherever I go. I've already wanted several times to ask a question as it occurred to me at work, and couldn't, as I'd downloaded the messages into Thunderbird at home, and so had nothing to which I could reply. I tried at first to use the Gmail trick of appending some qualifier to the name. E.g. if I'm [EMAIL PROTECTED] (which I'm not), I would use something like [EMAIL PROTECTED], which would still make it to [EMAIL PROTECTED], but would have the +emc in it as something I could filter into a separate folder. The list wouldn't accept it, sending it back as having an invalid name. I suppose I could have simply filtered by 'From,' but I kind of just wanted something entirely emc-only. Unfortunately, I still don't really understand all the base thread stuff, and its related mumbo jumbo. I did get some info that's pushing me farther forward, however, and it sounds like even the pros in here still need to do a lot of experimenting to fine-tune everything, test limits, and back off from found limits. It sounds quite like machining in that respect. Thanks, Gene. -Gary On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 6:41 PM, Gene Heskett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 18 March 2008, Gary Fixler wrote: I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. I'm not sure why, as it's the same account - just a different interface on my end, and a different outbound server (verizon at home / probably my host - hostrocket - at work). Thunderbird was receiving every list message, including the ones I'd sent through the web interface. Every message sent through the web version always made it, and promptly. Clearly, the Verizon server's version of my mail was just being dropped, probably by the list, as I've not had that problem sending mail anywhere else, and have for years now, including to about 5 other list serves. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this, with details, in case anyone in here has power over these things. Maybe it's just a flipped switch, or someone's chair is on the internet cable ;) Also, a big thanks to Gene Heskett for answering my RTAPI error question from last night. I forgot about my mail troubles, and downloaded the messages into Thunderbird this morning, and of course, can't reply to that one now from in there. It would seem I can use this new Gmail address from now on, so I'm moving to this account, and dumping the cnc@ address from my host. I use Gmail daily anyway, so it's not a big deal, but it's frustrating that I can't use any personal email through my own server. I may have more questions about RTAPI issues, but I'll start a new thread with this address should it come to that. Thanks again. -Gary I have not had any probs with vz dropping this list, but the jerks kept dropping and bouncing the lkml, getting me un-subscribed twice so I had to move that account to gmail. But, when vz gets a corncob up their anus about a list, you may as well give up and use gmail. I actually have 3 servers I can 'pop3' fetch from, using fetchmail, which in turn uses procmail as its MTA, and procmail steers it through spamassassin and disposes of it accordingly if its too spammy. All kmail has to do is sort it to the right folders. Does that make this old fart (73) a 'power user'? Nah, just a wee bit better than the average bear, a small amount of the time, and dumber the rest of the time. :) In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. However, as has been noted, every motherbaord/video combo is going to be enough different that sometimes the only thing you can do is to throw more money at the hardware. There have been a couple of motherboards that just weren't usable but I don't even recall their trade names now. Perhaps one of the developers has a better memory than mine on what brands to avoid. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) A vivid and creative mind characterizes you.
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Gary, I also have problems with the mail servers (from sourceforge that is). For some reason, most of my mails I write through Thunderbird arrive with a normal delay but last Sunday I wrote an email (Re on How do I calculate leadscrew push/pull forces? but that mail only arrived 2 days later. Somehow it hung for 2 days between my provider's mailserver and my own. Both webmail and Thunderbird use the same (my own local) mailserver to deliver the mail to my provider and in both cases they use the same outgoing mailserver at my provider. Still, mails I write via webmail are mostly late or do not arrive at all where mails I write via Thunderbird normally arrives within a minute or so on the mailing list. (it is now Wed. 07:06 CET so about Tue 22:06 local time according to sourceforge) I keep forgettting this and since I tend to be away a lot (spending too much time in the shop ...) these days I keep trying to use webmail. But GMail is nowadays also providing IMAP access so maybe I'll switch back to GMail again. I setup a your domain on GMail account long ago so all mail for myvoice.nl can go via their services. Regards, Rob -- May the forge be with you Gary Fixler wrote: I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: Gene Heskett wrote: [snip] Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Regards, John Kasunich Hummm, much food for thought, does it hit the logs or is that skipped too? There are two different places where overruns may be displayed. One of them is available in HAL as the parameter motion.servo.overruns. You can stick a halmeter on that and see if it increases over time. Note: that parameter may go up by 5 every time there's one overrun - it looks at 5 samples and it's possible that the error will be reported as long as the bad sample is in the buffer. It, from here, just went through the axis logo, several times and is still at 0 for motion.servo.overruns. This is with a base_thread setting at 38 u-secs. The machine will run at 25 but pretty laggy. I was running it at 30 before the new single step stepgen came out There are a couple of other parameters as well, motion.servo.last-period (the last servo thread period in CPU clocks) and motion.servo.last-period-ns (the last servo thread period in ns - in some cases, this version won't be available). It is, and from here, motion.servo.last.period is a 7 digit number left of the decimal, dancing but usually in the 137. range, motion.servo.last.period.ns also dances some, in the 97. range NDI if these are good or bad. Sounds large though.. Doing the test over an ssh -Y link, I see some decent numbers with a worst case n about 5 minutes of web browsing of 14500ns, 14.5 u-secs. I don't believe its that good running on its own screen, giving numbers in the 17800ns area IIRC. Still, even 20 u-secs is tolerable. The last time I ran stepconf, it chose a 78 u-second base period, which did seem rather slow. That does sound a bit slow for PWM, but may be fine for step generation. A period of 78 us gives you ~12800 steps/second. If you have 8000 steps/inch, this gives you 96 IPM. 32000 xy, and 34xxx on z. and I just found the ini file is wrong, I must have entered the stepdown pulley teeth in the wrong order. Fixed that from a -85xx.x to -34285.7142857. :( 20 tpi screws direct drive on xy, 10 tpi, but a 14/30 stepdown on z. A is direct to the worm, 10 degrees per 1600 step motor rev so one turn of the table is 36 turns=57600 microsteps= 1 full turn. Scale=160 in the .ini file so I assume thats a per degree setting. However since the advent of one cycle steps in the stepgen these days, the text is in bad need of updateing on the wiki page that discusses the latency-test and how to use it. That is at: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?TweakingSoftwareStepGeneration #Run_a_Latency_Test Since it is assuming 2 cycles per step, the description gets confusing fairly quickly as I'm not sure what I should throw out to make it sensible in a one cycle step scenario. I wouldn't throw much out, but adding something on calculations for double-step might be a good thing. Remember also that type 1 stepgens may not be the only thing running in the base thread. Any of the phase drive outputs or quadrature can't use (and don't need) doublestep, and then there's PWM to throw in the mix. Give the list a notice when that has been done please. Which could be important for some, here it is only spindle control with updates at servo_thread rate, which is much faster than the 100 hz pwm rate. With the filter option set at 1 second on the PMDX-106, the response is slow makes the servo sound soft, but I don't think it will be when cutting. I didn't build my ammeter into the new circuit yet, ran out of panel room for it. Its still running, and showing a base_thread of about 38500ns, and a jitter of just under 14000ns, so what would be the ideal base_period, ignoring the startup message that axis's drawing of its gui apparently creates? I wouldn't blame it on AXIS until someone shows that it doesn't happen with any other GUIs. :) Since axis came out, I haven't used anything else but, I'm NOT pointing the finger at axis, just gui's in general. Actually, it's not AXIS in any case since that's a userspace application - it could be your video drivers if it has something to do with the 3D preview, your disk drivers if it's from loading the startup g-code file, your file system itself (I actually traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... Interesting, how the heck would one go about instrumenting to detect that? It's also possible that the problem is within RTAI - like some kind of condition where some timer setup is done, but before the interrupt is enabled (or directed where we want), more time elapses than expected. That would cause one problem at startup, but isn't indicative of a run-time issue. That has been my impression particularly since the audible step rates when its
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:55:07AM -0400, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: It's hard to tell what the ideal base period is. Stepconf is probably choosing something that will work for whatever scaling and max velocities you've chosen. I don't know if it takes PWM period/resolution into account when choosing the BASE_PERIOD though. Presently, stepconf only considers step rate when choosing BASE_PERIOD. Ideally, PWM output and spindle encoder input would also figure into the calculation. I'm happy to take a look at patches intended to improve this. Look for 'def ideal_period' in stepconf.py for the place to add these calculations. Jeff - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
John Kasunich wrote: Gene Heskett wrote: In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. You never will. The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time EMC notices a delay. We don't print it every time because if you have your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every second. Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Yes. There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug level to be set to export that pin. Do you know what that debug level is? Thanks, Jon - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: (I actually traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... Yow, how do you fix that? Jon - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Jon Elson wrote: [snip] Yes. There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug level to be set to export that pin. Do you know what that debug level is? I don't think there's any specific debug level for the pin to show up. I mentioned those pins (motion.servo.last-period also) to Gene and they were available on his version ... - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Jeff Epler wrote: On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:55:07AM -0400, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: It's hard to tell what the ideal base period is. Stepconf is probably choosing something that will work for whatever scaling and max velocities you've chosen. I don't know if it takes PWM period/resolution into account when choosing the BASE_PERIOD though. Presently, stepconf only considers step rate when choosing BASE_PERIOD. Ideally, PWM output and spindle encoder input would also figure into the calculation. I'm happy to take a look at patches intended to improve this. Look for 'def ideal_period' in stepconf.py for the place to add these calculations. Thanks for the pointer. This may be something easy enough for even me to do (in Python :) ) - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Jon Elson wrote: Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: (I actually traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... Yow, how do you fix that? I used ext2 on those systems, which doesn't do journaling. They're headless and flash-disk based, so I just changed them to mount / read-only. - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: Jon Elson wrote: Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: (I actually traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... Yow, how do you fix that? I used ext2 on those systems, which doesn't do journaling. They're headless and flash-disk based, so I just changed them to mount / read-only. As an aside, Steve, I'm also on the lkml, and discussions there have indicated that ext2 on a flash is known to be murder on the flash. Read-only would be an excellent idea, but I don't know if that actually stops ext2's housekeeping. I'd assume it does, but the life of the flash would tell the tale I expect. How did you do that, in fstab? - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Take a lesson from the whale; the only time he gets speared is when he raises to spout. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Jon Elson wrote: John Kasunich wrote: Gene Heskett wrote: In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. You never will. The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time EMC notices a delay. We don't print it every time because if you have your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every second. Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Yes. There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug level to be set to export that pin. Do you know what that debug level is? Thanks, Jon And that would explain why I see zero there, always. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Old musicians never die, they just decompose. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Gene Heskett wrote: [snip] Yes. There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug level to be set to export that pin. Do you know what that debug level is? Thanks, Jon And that would explain why I see zero there, always. No, it does *not* explain it! There are some HAL modules that may change the pins they export based on some debug setting (not a DEBUGLEVEL in the ini file, a debug parameter passed at load time). In every case that I'm aware of, the same variable that controls the export of the pin/param also controls the updates of the pin/param. This means that if you see the param in HAL, it is being updated. - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: Gene Heskett wrote: [snip] Yes. There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug level to be set to export that pin. Do you know what that debug level is? Thanks, Jon And that would explain why I see zero there, always. No, it does *not* explain it! There are some HAL modules that may change the pins they export based on some debug setting (not a DEBUGLEVEL in the ini file, a debug parameter passed at load time). In every case that I'm aware of, the same variable that controls the export of the pin/param also controls the updates of the pin/param. This means that if you see the param in HAL, it is being updated. - Steve So I do not in fact, have a real, ongoing problem. But I'll duplicate that from its own keyboard before I lay my hand on the bible. Yet today. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. -- Fletcher Knebel - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
It sounds like you're having the opposite problem, able to send through Thunderbird, and not the web service. At any rate, I'm much more interested in joining the real festivities in this group, and learning EMC a lot better, so now that I have Gmail up and working, I'm going to leave well-enough alone. Oh, and I checked out your setup at your site. I love the rubber band mounting solution :) Seriously, though, I'm very jealous of all of you guys with your huge router tables, and simply must have one some day. I'm on a mini mill, so all of my work has to be done on stock smaller than my hand. -g On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 8:07 AM, Rob Jansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gary, I also have problems with the mail servers (from sourceforge that is). For some reason, most of my mails I write through Thunderbird arrive with a normal delay but last Sunday I wrote an email (Re on How do I calculate leadscrew push/pull forces? but that mail only arrived 2 days later. Somehow it hung for 2 days between my provider's mailserver and my own. Both webmail and Thunderbird use the same (my own local) mailserver to deliver the mail to my provider and in both cases they use the same outgoing mailserver at my provider. Still, mails I write via webmail are mostly late or do not arrive at all where mails I write via Thunderbird normally arrives within a minute or so on the mailing list. (it is now Wed. 07:06 CET so about Tue 22:06 local time according to sourceforge) I keep forgettting this and since I tend to be away a lot (spending too much time in the shop ...) these days I keep trying to use webmail. But GMail is nowadays also providing IMAP access so maybe I'll switch back to GMail again. I setup a your domain on GMail account long ago so all mail for myvoice.nl can go via their services. Regards, Rob -- May the forge be with you Gary Fixler wrote: I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
[Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. I'm not sure why, as it's the same account - just a different interface on my end, and a different outbound server (verizon at home / probably my host - hostrocket - at work). Thunderbird was receiving every list message, including the ones I'd sent through the web interface. Every message sent through the web version always made it, and promptly. Clearly, the Verizon server's version of my mail was just being dropped, probably by the list, as I've not had that problem sending mail anywhere else, and have for years now, including to about 5 other list serves. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this, with details, in case anyone in here has power over these things. Maybe it's just a flipped switch, or someone's chair is on the internet cable ;) Also, a big thanks to Gene Heskett for answering my RTAPI error question from last night. I forgot about my mail troubles, and downloaded the messages into Thunderbird this morning, and of course, can't reply to that one now from in there. It would seem I can use this new Gmail address from now on, so I'm moving to this account, and dumping the cnc@ address from my host. I use Gmail daily anyway, so it's not a big deal, but it's frustrating that I can't use any personal email through my own server. I may have more questions about RTAPI issues, but I'll start a new thread with this address should it come to that. Thanks again. -Gary - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Gary, Some band width providers will block socket 25 as a measure to cut down on spam. When you receive mail, that goes through another service (POP3 is the most common) which is on a different port (110 for POP). This can explain why you are able to receive, but not send. The way to test this is to do the following in a terminal session (command prompt on Windoze): telnet SMTP server name 25 The SMTP server name is the one you set up for outgoing mail on your [EMAIL PROTECTED] email account and '25' specifies the SMTP socket. If the connection times out, then socket 25 is being blocked. If you get a telnet session (it should start 220 SMTP Server name...) then you have a different problem. Additionally, if this is the problem, then you should not be able to send to any email address, not just this list. Having said that, I also have Verizon at home and it is not blocking socket 25 for me. Regards, Eric I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. I'm not sure why, as it's the same account - just a different interface on my end, and a different outbound server (verizon at home / probably my host - hostrocket - at work). Thunderbird was receiving every list message, including the ones I'd sent through the web interface. Every message sent through the web version always made it, and promptly. Clearly, the Verizon server's version of my mail was just being dropped, probably by the list, as I've not had that problem sending mail anywhere else, and have for years now, including to about 5 other list serves. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this, with details, in case anyone in here has power over these things. Maybe it's just a flipped switch, or someone's chair is on the internet cable ;) Also, a big thanks to Gene Heskett for answering my RTAPI error question from last night. I forgot about my mail troubles, and downloaded the messages into Thunderbird this morning, and of course, can't reply to that one now from in there. It would seem I can use this new Gmail address from now on, so I'm moving to this account, and dumping the cnc@ address from my host. I use Gmail daily anyway, so it's not a big deal, but it's frustrating that I can't use any personal email through my own server. I may have more questions about RTAPI issues, but I'll start a new thread with this address should it come to that. Thanks again. -Gary - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Tuesday 18 March 2008, Gary Fixler wrote: I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host, but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird, though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from the web interface. I'm not sure why, as it's the same account - just a different interface on my end, and a different outbound server (verizon at home / probably my host - hostrocket - at work). Thunderbird was receiving every list message, including the ones I'd sent through the web interface. Every message sent through the web version always made it, and promptly. Clearly, the Verizon server's version of my mail was just being dropped, probably by the list, as I've not had that problem sending mail anywhere else, and have for years now, including to about 5 other list serves. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this, with details, in case anyone in here has power over these things. Maybe it's just a flipped switch, or someone's chair is on the internet cable ;) Also, a big thanks to Gene Heskett for answering my RTAPI error question from last night. I forgot about my mail troubles, and downloaded the messages into Thunderbird this morning, and of course, can't reply to that one now from in there. It would seem I can use this new Gmail address from now on, so I'm moving to this account, and dumping the cnc@ address from my host. I use Gmail daily anyway, so it's not a big deal, but it's frustrating that I can't use any personal email through my own server. I may have more questions about RTAPI issues, but I'll start a new thread with this address should it come to that. Thanks again. -Gary I have not had any probs with vz dropping this list, but the jerks kept dropping and bouncing the lkml, getting me un-subscribed twice so I had to move that account to gmail. But, when vz gets a corncob up their anus about a list, you may as well give up and use gmail. I actually have 3 servers I can 'pop3' fetch from, using fetchmail, which in turn uses procmail as its MTA, and procmail steers it through spamassassin and disposes of it accordingly if its too spammy. All kmail has to do is sort it to the right folders. Does that make this old fart (73) a 'power user'? Nah, just a wee bit better than the average bear, a small amount of the time, and dumber the rest of the time. :) In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. However, as has been noted, every motherbaord/video combo is going to be enough different that sometimes the only thing you can do is to throw more money at the hardware. There have been a couple of motherboards that just weren't usable but I don't even recall their trade names now. Perhaps one of the developers has a better memory than mine on what brands to avoid. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Gene Heskett wrote: In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. You never will. The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time EMC notices a delay. We don't print it every time because if you have your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every second. Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Regards, John Kasunich - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
On Tuesday 18 March 2008, John Kasunich wrote: Gene Heskett wrote: In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here. You never will. The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time EMC notices a delay. I have, once or twice, seen 2, but they don't coome from the same code, the windows it opens are different sized. But thats very rare. Both at startup, just as axis has finished drawing its screen, and many seconds before emc would ever be asked to do anything. We don't print it every time because if you have your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every second. And a machine that could only be rescued by a tap on the reset button. Thats not a Good Thing(TM). OTOH, if the first thing you did after rebooting was to add 20% more time to the base_period, you would soon know if the hardware was usable for emc. Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Regards, John Kasunich Hummm, much food for thought, does it hit the logs or is that skipped too? Doing the test over an ssh -Y link, I see some decent numbers with a worst case n about 5 minutes of web browsing of 14500ns, 14.5 u-secs. I don't believe its that good running on its own screen, giving numbers in the 17800ns area IIRC. Still, even 20 u-secs is tolerable. The last time I ran stepconf, it chose a 78 u-second base period, which did seem rather slow. However since the advent of one cycle steps in the stepgen these days, the text is in bad need of updateing on the wiki page that discusses the latency-test and how to use it. That is at: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?TweakingSoftwareStepGeneration#Run_a_Latency_Test Since it is assuming 2 cycles per step, the description gets confusing fairly quickly as I'm not sure what I should throw out to make it sensible in a one cycle step scenario. Its still running, and showing a base_thread of about 38500ns, and a jitter of just under 14000ns, so what would be the ideal base_period, ignoring the startup message that axis's drawing of its gui apparently creates? BTW, 2.2.4 'feels' good. No surprises so far, but then I haven't made any chips either as I'm still rebuilding that corner. I bought a 36x48 sheet of some sort of acrylic that is supposed to be 250 times stronger than glass, but in nibbling off a corner to use as the mount for the suicide brakes resistor (40 ohms), I found cracks propagate through it just like regular acrylic. Lexan it ain't.. Whats left will be placed on the frame between the mill and the computer, and the keyboard shelf will get wider so there is room for the mouse etc etc. I haven't figured out what to do with the ups yet, it is about 60 pounds crowds the hell out of the shelf above the monitor where the xylotex and its psu live alongside the computer. 60 pounds that high in the air on a step stool is a bit much for this old fart these days. Thanks John. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!
Gene Heskett wrote: [snip] Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that you really don't know how often you are getting a delay. But DON'T think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once. Regards, John Kasunich Hummm, much food for thought, does it hit the logs or is that skipped too? There are two different places where overruns may be displayed. One of them is available in HAL as the parameter motion.servo.overruns. You can stick a halmeter on that and see if it increases over time. Note: that parameter may go up by 5 every time there's one overrun - it looks at 5 samples and it's possible that the error will be reported as long as the bad sample is in the buffer. There are a couple of other parameters as well, motion.servo.last-period (the last servo thread period in CPU clocks) and motion.servo.last-period-ns (the last servo thread period in ns - in some cases, this version won't be available). Doing the test over an ssh -Y link, I see some decent numbers with a worst case n about 5 minutes of web browsing of 14500ns, 14.5 u-secs. I don't believe its that good running on its own screen, giving numbers in the 17800ns area IIRC. Still, even 20 u-secs is tolerable. The last time I ran stepconf, it chose a 78 u-second base period, which did seem rather slow. That does sound a bit slow for PWM, but may be fine for step generation. A period of 78 us gives you ~12800 steps/second. If you have 8000 steps/inch, this gives you 96 IPM. However since the advent of one cycle steps in the stepgen these days, the text is in bad need of updateing on the wiki page that discusses the latency-test and how to use it. That is at: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?TweakingSoftwareStepGeneration#Run_a_Latency_Test Since it is assuming 2 cycles per step, the description gets confusing fairly quickly as I'm not sure what I should throw out to make it sensible in a one cycle step scenario. I wouldn't throw much out, but adding something on calculations for double-step might be a good thing. Remember also that type 1 stepgens may not be the only thing running in the base thread. Any of the phase drive outputs or quadrature can't use (and don't need) doublestep, and then there's PWM to throw in the mix. Its still running, and showing a base_thread of about 38500ns, and a jitter of just under 14000ns, so what would be the ideal base_period, ignoring the startup message that axis's drawing of its gui apparently creates? I wouldn't blame it on AXIS until someone shows that it doesn't happen with any other GUIs. :) Actually, it's not AXIS in any case since that's a userspace application - it could be your video drivers if it has something to do with the 3D preview, your disk drivers if it's from loading the startup g-code file, your file system itself (I actually traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... It's also possible that the problem is within RTAI - like some kind of condition where some timer setup is done, but before the interrupt is enabled (or directed where we want), more time elapses than expected. That would cause one problem at startup, but isn't indicative of a run-time issue. It's hard to tell what the ideal base period is. Stepconf is probably choosing something that will work for whatever scaling and max velocities you've chosen. I don't know if it takes PWM period/resolution into account when choosing the BASE_PERIOD though. Incidentally, what tells you that the generated time is not ideal? - Steve - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
