> Hello Steve, > I gather that you are on the editing staff of EMC "paperware". I have been > reading a lot and printed the manuals so I could read them in a more > comfortable position than sitting at the desk. I wanted to keep back my > suggestions until I knew what I'm talking about, but now you asked for > it.... > > - What I missed reading the manuals were drawings. One picture says more > than a thousand words.
Well.. we are always looking for suggestions, improvements and the like. Even small things like: "hey, the section describing *foo* is not clear enough. Maybe you could take a look at rewording it, or adding a schematic how things work" > - How about a schematic of where EMC2 is installed in the Linux tree. I'm not sure why you would care about that, but there is a file in the source tree describing that: http://cvs.linuxcnc.org/cvs/emc2/directory.map?rev=1.28 The first part describes the layout of the emc2 source tree, the second part where everything gets installed. Again, I am not sure what information you try to gain from that. > - If I had had an overwiew right from the beginning in which order all > those .ini and .hal files are read by what program I could get a better > feeling editing them (and faster!). you should only care about your configuration files. You should have (if you followed the docs or stepconf or the configpicker) have: an emc2/ folder in your homedir (~/emc2/) a configs/ and an nc_files/ folder in it emc2/configs/ holds all your configs (in a place where it's not part of the emc2 install package, and won't get overwritten by latter upgrades/installs). emc2/nc_files/ should hold your g-code files. You probably have a config called mymachine (if you used stepconf, and didn't chose a custom name) ~/emc2/configs/mymachine That folder holds all the configuration files for emc2. The ini is the first file that gets read, it contains links to all other files (.hal , .tbl, .var, .nml). The emc2 runscript (found in /usr/bin/emc) reads that file (either after you chose it from the config picker, or if you specify it directly "emc ~/emc2/configs/mymachine/mymachine.ini" or if you run the last configuration "emc -l"). It reads the section describing that the NML file is called (usually emc.nml), then start to load emc2 components. For the various tools you have, it reads the tool table file defined in the ini (called *.tbl). For saved offsets and variables, it reads the var file (called *.var). Then it starts setting up the hardware part of emc2, which is handled using HAL. For HAL you can have more than one .hal file, to keep things easier to read. Basicly the hal files define how many stepgen's to be loaded, and to what pins on the parport to connect them. Further they define the timings for the stepgens and so on. If you use stepconf to generate a config, then all the above has been set automatically by it. You can look at the various connections, but changing them is not encouraged as any changes will be lost by further runs of stepconf. If you want to step away from stepconf, then you can change all aspects as you see fit. The ini file format and options is described here: http://www.linuxcnc.org/docview/html//config_ini_config.html Understanding the HAL files is probably a bit more complicated than just looking at some tables. I would start by reading: http://www.linuxcnc.org/docview/html//hal_basic_hal.html http://www.linuxcnc.org/docview/html//hal_general_ref.html http://www.linuxcnc.org/docview/html//hal_drivers.html (only parport stuff) http://www.linuxcnc.org/docview/html//hal_rtcomps.html (probably only stepgen) All the above docs are included in the emc2 documentation, but as it's really vast, it's probably hard to keep an overview. > - A very humble suggestion: it should be possible to arrange the .pdf's > pages so that when printing the manuals the odd page numbers are at right, > the even ones at the left and the page numbers appear in the upper (or > lower) outside corner like in ordinary book printing. Part of the problem > is that the contents pages at the front end are numbered by roman numerals > which are not correctly recognized by the adobe printing tool (?) or my > printer driver. we'll look into that. although I must say roman numerals are _very_ common in books. > In any case, to avoid hard feelings and because I myself feel the urge to > say it: let me express my great appreciation for the way newcomers like me > are treated in this forum and for the patience the "gurus" show toward > them > even with seemingly silly beginner's questions. It always helps to define what you want to accomplish, and we'll try to find the best way for you. > I'm a little farther now > than this but way from completely understanding what the system does in > detail. And even more appreciation for the energy and time the developers > are devoting to this community! > Thank you all very much > Peter Blodow I'm not sure that's a sensible goal you set. "Understanding what the system does in detail" is probably a task that will take a couple months/years (depending on the dedication ;). Maybe you mean understanding what components are in emc2, and how they interact, that's more like a realistic goal, but for running emc2 you don't need any knowledge of details. Regards, Alex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Create and Deploy Rich Internet Apps outside the browser with Adobe(R)AIR(TM) software. With Adobe AIR, Ajax developers can use existing skills and code to build responsive, highly engaging applications that combine the power of local resources and data with the reach of the web. Download the Adobe AIR SDK and Ajax docs to start building applications today-http://p.sf.net/sfu/adobe-com _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
