Richard -
While I'm no 7i43 expert, I appear to be part of the small group of those who have been able to get it to work. It took a while - EMC setup is by no means on the same level as a USB Hard Drive - I'm hoping that you realize the reason you are getting so many requests for information on "what is your system like" is because there is no "cookie cutter" CNC setup out there. (Well, ok there are some that are close, but EVERYONE wants, needs or eventually does tweak their system in some fashion.) Part of the reason I like EMC over other platforms I've implemented before (including Mach, Fanuc Oi, Siemens, and a couple of asian knockoffs) is that it has no "must be plugged into this device" assumption. The downside is that there isn't an "out of the box" solution for EVERY installation. There are wonderful wizards, but let's face it, motion control is not for the faint of heart. Paper copies of the integrator manuals, the .PIN files for the 7i43 firmware you're using, the man pages for hostmot2 are all useful tools you will want to reference often. I am implementing the 7i43 as part of an "old iron" retrofit of a big-name 3kw gantry laser cutter, circa 1994. I was hoping to keep the original servo drives, but it's not going to be the case. Due to the size of one of the servo motors (11kw!) the traditional step/dir "smart positioning" drives I'm used to (that keep the intelligence in the drive, and practically look like a stepper motor to EMC) - aren't available, or at least not for the budget. Thus, I'm moving the PID servo intelligence inside EMC, and as a benefit, get to go "el cheapo" on the actual amplifier part. Very Important Note: I knew going into this that the driver support was NOT official. Or completed. Or Released. All of the openly available documentation on the EMC and Mesa websites, past mailing list posts and IRC chats made that VERY, VERY CLEAR. I could also tell that there were some very intelligent individuals available willing to help. I expected to have to spend a lot of frustrating hours getting my first link to work, but weighed the alternatives and still considered this the most appropriate (and perhaps even fun,option). So, here's a description of My Working Setup: My motherboard of preference is a Via Epia M10000 Mini-ATX series. I load it up with 1 GB of ram, and typically put a CF flash drive on for the finished work, but use an old (10gb) hard drive for provisioning/testing. I haven't liked PCI cards due to the arrangement of the PCI slot on the Epia - even with a "flipper" card, it makes the card awkward. That's right, I chose the 7i43 not out of function, but because it was sexy and easily dropped off the parallel port. Admittedly, the card fit the budget and functional requirements just fine, too, but the fact it was small won me over. The bios on this MB was fully updated, to include both EPP 1.7 and EPP 1.9 modes. This is important. Really, really important. It is unlikely, given recent testing, discussion and the phase of the moon over my shop, that one would achieve success without this option. That may rule out an old PC.however, I wouldn't risk my arm, eye, or any other vital organ to an old PC that couldn't keep up with some realtime PID calcs. I ran an old copy of puppy-emc on a "reclaimed box" once but wouldn't give it to a customer. Just a recommendation. The BIOS settings were confirmed over the period of a lot of failures. It is my general belief that this Bios is actually backwards in its selection of 1.7 vs. 1.9 on this MB...but that doesn't matter - what matters is that one mode works and the other one doesn't. I chose the one that works. This is a problem likely specific to the Epia itself. I installed EMC2 from the LiveCD (current ISO), updated everything via the package manager, then pulled down the current trunk version and compiled it. This means you now have 2 copies of EMC - you must know where you extracted/built your trunk version and run everything from there - get rid of the default launchers/shortcuts on the desktop and build your own with the proper paths. You could uninstall the original version, or use the run-in-place options, but I didn't concern myself with this. As you build, the installer notes are quite clear in describing your next step. I used: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Installing_EMC2#On_Ubuntu_6_06_o r_8_04_from_source as my roadmap. Update, update, update. If you don't have the right packages installed, makes will fail. Updates solved that. Just to make sure we got this far, I also ran the(stepper_sim config) - it's in the sample configs, and makes neat stepper-like noises in the PC speaker, just to let you know life is good. I always do this. It doesn't prove much of anything except for a valid install. No need to chase additional ghosts. The 7i43 can be programmed so it retains a firmware in its onboard epprom, but since I'm still building, I haven't flashed mine yet - I still call a firmware (.bit file for the Spartan) explicitly in the .hal file. That means the firmware loader needs to know where to look, and by default it typically doesn't. This is referred to as symlinking your sandbox, and goes something like this: $ sudo ln -s $HOME/emc2-sandbox/src/hal/drivers/mesa-hostmot2/firmware /lib/firmware/hm2 The first reference (with the $HOME path) needs to actually point to where you compiled your trunk version - there are plenty of google references to help you with this. Power input to the 7i43 is via an external 5v power supply. You can use USB power if you want, but you can't just plug a USB cable into the USB port - the board will attempt to enumerate with the MB BIOS. Even if you remove USB drivers from Ubuntu, the 7i43 will (in my observation) get stuck, doing what, in fact, it's been told to do: make a USB connection - thus, if you use the USB power from the MB, remove the D+/D- lines from the cable, or preferably, just connect 5v to the proper power connector. Jumpers are set for EPP config (W4 & W5 down), USB Power off (W6 down) - since I'm feeding power into the external 5v connector - Power Enable is on (W7 up). Data cabling is via a short (12" long) crimped D25-IDC ribbon cable. After that, I made sure that I could actually get firmware to load into the 7i43 - and the "best" way to do this, IMO, is through the command prompt. Too much is variable in an untested system, so wanting an ini and hal fileset at this point is a) useless, and b) a waste of time. I am going to hope that you already have established communication with your board, but the pastebin files didn't help me, so for reference: $ halrun Halcmd: loadrt hostmot2 Halcmd: loadrt hm2_7i43 config="firmware=hm2/7i43/SVST4_4B.BIT" I happen to have the 400k gate Spartan, if you have the 200k version, substitute "SVST4_4S.BIT" - you should hopefully have read that there are 2 different firmware sets, one for the 400k ("Big") version, and one for the 200k ("Small") version...Note that in my hal file, the same 400k vs. 200k requirement applies.. If the hm2_7i43 component loaded without error, the "hardware" is likely good to go. If it failed, there is more hunting you have to do, and all the config files in the world aren't going to help. Here, you really need to know your system, and track down problems with patience. If you got this far, we can now cheat a bit and you can download my files from here: http://filebin.ca/hvthwk/m7i43_th.hal and http://filebin.ca/thqbtc/m7i43_th.ini You will want to put them in their own directory (inside your trunk EMC2 would be nice, but desktop is fine, too) You will also need to build a .var file, a .tbl file and copy over the emc.nml file - all as referenced in the ini file, or you can just download them also from here: http://filebin.ca/tymdgd/emc.nml and http://filebin.ca/weppbt/m7i43.tbl and http://filebin.ca/jutbos/m7i43.var Those 5 files, together with a properly configured launcher shortcut will launch EMC with the Axis gui, and set up 3 PWM servo axes (x,y,z), that output to the P4 connector on the 7i43. All shared without warranty, fitness, merchantability or liabilities of any kind. The .hal and .ini files are slightly stripped from my current ones, as I'm adding less "mill-style" connections to run the laser and various workholding options, conveyors, limit switches, height sensors, etc. - I pulled that stuff out to confuse less, and replaced the estop chain with the "standard/virtual" version - make sure you implement an appropriate physical estop chain. Hopefully this works for you, but as you probably don't have my exact setup, there's a chance you may still run into problems. It's important to take it one step at a time and strip out as much of the complexity as possible, but I can respect your desire to test against a confirmed functional baseline. Keep at it - you'll get there! Ted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
