Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
clap, clap, clap . . . . . . I second the motion. If and when I have some free time I might knock up a quick flyer based on these notions. Obviously for others to add on to. We will need some real clean shiny pictures though. Close-ups work very well. Are there volunteers? j. On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 7:05 AM, Jack Coats j...@coats.org wrote: I worked for a company where we did 'market open software'. We sold Asterisk based VOIP telephone PBX systems. They were 'white box' hardware (generic, nothing special) systems, with Linux, Asterisk, and other support software all installed, integrated, configured for the customers. There was NOTHING we did a customer could not have done for themselves. What we were selling was our expertise, time, and our 'shortcut' to solutions. They did purchase some hardware over and above our time as well. What companies seem to want to purchase is not 'software' and 'hardware'. They want solutions. If you can sell a solution that they don't have to do anything to get it to work, it can be 'sold' as a high value proposition to the customer who needs the solution to solve their problem. ... It took me some time to realize we were not selling product ... we were selling solutions. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
2012/3/17 Jack Coats j...@coats.org: What companies seem to want to purchase is not 'software' and 'hardware'. They want solutions. Yes, exactly! Unfortunately my clients tend to ask, what kind of solution they are paying for and what am I going to implement and then it would be nice to show them a page, where at least some of the best LinuxCNC examples are mentioned so that they can be assured that my solution (meaning LinuxCNC) can be trusted. And LinuxCNC is not attractive only to cost-sensitive customers. There are many more selling points, including, but not limited to: 1) as mentioned before - cost of software - NONE; 2) since LinuxCNC is about being smart controller on dumb hardware, it works on simple hardware (for example, it does not require closing feedback loop in servo controller etc), which also is more cost-effective than compared to other alternatives (can You get a 2kW AC servo drive for 240$ (meaning 8i20) for any other CNC controller?); 3) customer is not locked in with a particular vendor/service provider - any other integrator can take over maintenance of my machines (I am trying to comment the contents of HAL files mainly for myself to understand them also few years later, when customer might ask to change something - add new functions etc, but that would help any other person to understand, what is going on there); 4) LinuxCNC is so flexible, that it can control all the possible CNC machines in a [typical] workshop, thus having all the machines the same controls (probably with slightly different screens) is easier for operators and there is less chance for a mistake, and preparing the code also is easier - the same g-code commands mean the same on all machines, no need for fancy post-processor per each machine, even if it is needed, then one for all the machines; 5) and it is so advanced that it can easily control all kinds of robots and other nasty machines with complicated kinematics and require no CAM postprocessor at all; If I (well, my company) ever grow large enough, I would have my own examples to show potential customers, but now some external page would be helpful. I completely agree with Kent - such a page would help marketing LinuxCNC. In a non-profit manner, where marketing is supposed to increase number of users (and hopefully active developers). That is traditional thinking that marketing function is only generate revenue. I would say that marketing is about drawing attention and increasing awareness of potential customers. 2012/3/17 Jan de Kruyf jan.de.kr...@gmail.com: We will need some real clean shiny pictures though. Close-ups work very well. Are there volunteers? I would like add that welding robot I built. I have some videos with it in action (so links to Youtube could be pasted), but I have no access to it to make pictures. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
if possible, i would like a complete list of cost insensitive customers. --- On Sat, 3/17/12, Viesturs Lācis viesturs.la...@gmail.com wrote: From: Viesturs Lācis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Date: Saturday, March 17, 2012, 1:27 AM 2012/3/17 Jack Coats j...@coats.org: What companies seem to want to purchase is not 'software' and 'hardware'. They want solutions. Yes, exactly! Unfortunately my clients tend to ask, what kind of solution they are paying for and what am I going to implement and then it would be nice to show them a page, where at least some of the best LinuxCNC examples are mentioned so that they can be assured that my solution (meaning LinuxCNC) can be trusted. And LinuxCNC is not attractive only to cost-sensitive customers. There are many more selling points, including, but not limited to: 1) as mentioned before - cost of software - NONE; 2) since LinuxCNC is about being smart controller on dumb hardware, it works on simple hardware (for example, it does not require closing feedback loop in servo controller etc), which also is more cost-effective than compared to other alternatives (can You get a 2kW AC servo drive for 240$ (meaning 8i20) for any other CNC controller?); 3) customer is not locked in with a particular vendor/service provider - any other integrator can take over maintenance of my machines (I am trying to comment the contents of HAL files mainly for myself to understand them also few years later, when customer might ask to change something - add new functions etc, but that would help any other person to understand, what is going on there); 4) LinuxCNC is so flexible, that it can control all the possible CNC machines in a [typical] workshop, thus having all the machines the same controls (probably with slightly different screens) is easier for operators and there is less chance for a mistake, and preparing the code also is easier - the same g-code commands mean the same on all machines, no need for fancy post-processor per each machine, even if it is needed, then one for all the machines; 5) and it is so advanced that it can easily control all kinds of robots and other nasty machines with complicated kinematics and require no CAM postprocessor at all; If I (well, my company) ever grow large enough, I would have my own examples to show potential customers, but now some external page would be helpful. I completely agree with Kent - such a page would help marketing LinuxCNC. In a non-profit manner, where marketing is supposed to increase number of users (and hopefully active developers). That is traditional thinking that marketing function is only generate revenue. I would say that marketing is about drawing attention and increasing awareness of potential customers. 2012/3/17 Jan de Kruyf jan.de.kr...@gmail.com: We will need some real clean shiny pictures though. Close-ups work very well. Are there volunteers? I would like add that welding robot I built. I have some videos with it in action (so links to Youtube could be pasted), but I have no access to it to make pictures. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
2012/3/17 charles green xxzzb...@yahoo.com: if possible, i would like a complete list of cost insensitive customers. :))) What I meant is the top priority of the customer - if cost is the one and only criterion or maybe some other things are considered equally or even more important... LinuxCNC is best fit not only for that first type. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
On 3/16/2012 10:31 PM, Stuart Stevenson wrote: Gentlemen, Just how do you 'market' a free item/product? The free LinuxCNC software is not even a loss leader. The whole thing is free - all the time - even the advice - even the help. Just asking. thanks Stuart Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mark -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
Gentlemen, On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:25 AM, Mark Wendt (Contractor) mark.we...@nrl.navy.mil wrote: On 3/16/2012 10:31 PM, Stuart Stevenson wrote: Gentlemen, Just how do you 'market' a free item/product? The free LinuxCNC software is not even a loss leader. The whole thing is free - all the time - even the advice - even the help. Just asking. thanks Stuart Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. In my opinion : Marketing LinuxCNC for the purpose of giving it away is a waste of time and resources. The time and resources would be better spent improving and expanding LinuxCNC. Donating time and resources to further the development of LinuxCNC is one way of improving the project (notice is said project not product). Helping someone learn is a very important part of improving and expanding LinuxCNC. Organizing an event, producing a video or brochure to help educate people about LinuxCNC (in my case for my own education) is a good way of contributing. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mach has a valid place in the world. Many of the Mach users have no interest in software/machine control development. Those users want a 'solution' with committed support to get a process running. Mach is perfect for that. LinuxCNC is not perfect for that. Helping someone understand LinuxCNC is different than marketing it to them. A valid consultation about the comparative benefits of Mach or LinuxCNC or another system would sometimes result in telling a prospective user that LinuxCNC is NOT the best choice to answer their need. A paid consultant would be required to have knowledge of Mach, LinuxCNC and other systems to be able to properly advise the correct 'solution'. I don't have Mach on any machines. I cannot tell you if Mach is better for any particular process or not. I do have (or have had/used/ran) Fanuc, Siemens, Haas, Fadal, Hurco, Moog, Heidenhain, Allen-Bradley, Mazak and probably I have missed one or two. Each of these is a valid solution and maybe the best solution to a particular need. LinuxCNC is unique in that it is more capable than any of the afore mentioned control systems and is a TRUE open source machine control project. This means it is limited only by the grey matter between your ears. For me, THIS is the primary attribute that is the tipping point and for me, this is the LIMITING factor of LinuxCNC. :) I hope my diatribe is helpful. thanks Stuart Mark -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- dos centavos -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
Thanks all for the input. I don't think I'm presenting the problem quite right, so I'll try to provide more detail, but for those not interested in that the specific technical problem I am hoping to solve is that I have configured a software encoder that does not seem to handle frequencies above about 500Hz. I think it should be able to handle much higher, based on my base period and the rest of the system. The relevant configuration is like so: the ini file: ... [EMCMOT] EMCMOT = motmod COMM_TIMEOUT = 1.0 COMM_WAIT = 0.010 SERVO_PERIOD = 100 ... [HAL] HALUI = halui HALFILE = 3300_mill.hal HALFILE = custom.hal POSTGUI_HALFILE = custom_postgui.hal SHUTDOWN = shutdown.hal ... main hal file: ... loadrt [EMCMOT]EMCMOT base_period_nsec=1 servo_period_nsec=[EMCMOT]SERVO_PERIOD num_joints=[TRAJ]AXES ... the custom.hal file: source analog-in.hal the analog-in.hal file: #http://linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/hal/rtcomps.html#sec:Encoder # hm2_5i23.0.gpio.048.in is the freqeuncy in # load the component loadrt encoder num_chan=1 setp encoder.0.counter-mode true #encoder.0.phase-A net analog-A encoder.0.phase-A = hm2_5i23.0.gpio.048.in # set the velocity of the encoder for a proper scale setp encoder.0.position-scale 1.0 # set the volicity out to feed the analog input net analog-1 = encoder.0.velocity # add the component to the thread addf encoder.update-counters base-thread addf encoder.capture-position servo-thread The full config under revision control at: http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2FProjectSheetCake%2Fconfigs%2F3300-mill%2Fedm I am using a Mesa isolated I/O card, and previously had thought the delay was 7uS, but that was for output. For input the delay can be as high as 25uS, but I think I should still easily be able to read 5kHz (200uS period) with that delay. It acts like it is sampling the encoder at the servo-thread frequency, despite the update-counters function being bound to the base-thread. When I view the configuration from axis, the base-thread does show the encoder.update-counters function bound to it. Sorry for all of the technical details, but I feel I am missing something simple here and so wanted to provide the info I had. Thanks! Scott More technical details follow for those interested: The mill itself is a conversion of an generic 3-axis servo Bridgeport-class knee mill from Anilam 3300 controls to LinuxCNC. We’ve also added a stepper-based 4th rotary axis. We’re using a Mesa 5i23 PCI card with a 7i23TA quad analog servo interface daughter card on the first 50 pin connector for interfacing with the servos and a 7i37TA isolated anything I/O adapter on the third 50 pin connector for integrating estop, limits, servo enable, etc. The second 50-pin connector is not optically isolated and is used to drive the stepper axis amp for the A axis. So the for the Mesa firmware I’ve configured 4 encoders and 4 pwms (three of each used) and 4 stepgens (one used). These are assigned to the first and second connectors respectively. ** ** More details here: ** ** http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/3300MillConversion ** ** and here: ** ** http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/FourthStepperAxis ** ** In general both LinuxCNC and the Mesa hardware have worked absolutely great and the mill is completely functional as-is. ** ** This is a machine for a hackerspace (sector67.org), and we now have a member interested in doing some plunge EDM. He’s working on the hardware high-voltage DC/fluid side of things and I’m working on the motion control portion, which basically boils down to reading an analog value and determining based on that whether to retreat, stay put or plunge further. I wrote a simple gcode loop that handles that logic, but need to create an interface between the EDM hardware and LinuxCNC that provides the gcode loop enough information to make a movement decision. ** ** There are lots of ways of doing that, but my initial thought was to take a relatively low-cost approach and use an Arduino for analog sensing and have that create a frequency pulse. Doing so is fairly trivial on the Arduino.** ** ** ** Given that this is EDM, voltage isolation is paramount. As a result, my hope was to use my isolated I/O daughter card on the third connector, which has ample I/O available as a software-based encoder input and use the velocity from that as the analog value in LinuxCNC. This works for low frequency input, but falls apart much more quickly than I expected at higher frequencies (about 500Hz). I’ll send my configuration later tonight when I have access to it in case I am making a silly mistake there. ** ** It seems like my options are basically: ** ** **1) **Have the arduino generate a frequency and work out the issues with the software encoder counting. This is my preferred approach, as it will let me add more analog inputs when we eventually want to
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
As a relative LinuxCNC newbie, I can say that a more clear presentation of the capabilities of the system would have made it less daunting to choose LinuxCNC. As a hobby CNC user, I had been exposed to probably 20 half-baked open source CAM tools/packages and been impressed with a total of zero. As a hacker space, we were philosophically committed to open source and so pursued LinuxCNC, but given that previous CAM experience I thought it was going to be a down the rabbit hole experience. I was greatly pleased to find out not only that LinuxCNC is extremely mature and stable, but that the architecture is well-thought-out and well executed, there are configuration generators for the most common use cases, a choice of clean functional extensible GUIs, and so many other batteries included that I absolutely was not expecting. Not to mention what others have said with respect to the helpfulness and openness of this support community. I'm now through two conversions and could not be more pleased: http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/3300MillConversion http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/ProjectSheetCake and would be willing to pitch in the documentation I have and additional videos, etc. to help more accurately represent the excellent state of this software and community to prospective users. My two cents, Scott On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 8:34 AM, gene heskett ghesk...@wdtv.com wrote: On Saturday, March 17, 2012 09:05:00 AM Mark Wendt (Contractor) did opine: On 3/16/2012 10:31 PM, Stuart Stevenson wrote: Gentlemen, Just how do you 'market' a free item/product? The free LinuxCNC software is not even a loss leader. The whole thing is free - all the time - even the advice - even the help. Just asking. thanks Stuart Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mark While I tend to agree that we need to polish up our sales pitch and material, one of the things I think we need to emphasize is the level of support, I think it is fantastic compared to anything I've ever seen before, where software packages that cost $2500/month, often have bugs that don't get fixed till the next annual, send lots more money, update. That is the usual situation at a tv station, where the software that handles Traffic, is the heart and soul of the business model. LinuxCNC with its random releases that to my knowledge have only once or twice not been 100% backwards compatible, has amazed me. But I guess I'm getting used to the Linux way of doing things. Take amanda, the backup program, where I have been playing the canary in the coal mine for the bleeding edge development versions for nearly 10 years running it for 14. Only one, non-compatible update has ever taken place and that was at least a decade ago. It gets broken by support library changes regularly, most recently by a glib-utils update, but was fixed in 3 days. That rapidity of fixing things we have no control over means we get broken more often than an M$ product is, but we still fix it 10x faster too. IMO, this rapid response to problems, should be quite near the top of the list of advantages to choosing LinuxCNC. 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) My web page: http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. -- James Blish -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/10 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Looks like at least 2 problems, one is that the firmware and driver are different versions (that firmware is fairly ancient) and the second problame is that the config line syntax has changed (this should be fixable with man hostmot2) John Murphy sent me a firmware file that is working for him and in INI file the CONFIG line is this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT num_encoders=1 sserial_port_0=00 What am I missing as I get this error at LinuxCNC startup? The fact that it complains about not being able to find nml_file makes me think that something needs to be updated, but what exactly? Could it be that Hostmot2 driver in LinuxCNC is outdated? Viesturs Here is complete error message: Print file information: RUN_IN_PLACE=no LINUXCNC_DIR= LINUXCNC_BIN_DIR=/usr/bin LINUXCNC_TCL_DIR=/usr/lib/tcltk/linuxcnc LINUXCNC_SCRIPT_DIR= LINUXCNC_RTLIB_DIR=/usr/realtime-2.6.32-122-rtai/modules/linuxcnc LINUXCNC_CONFIG_DIR= LINUXCNC_LANG_DIR=/usr/share/linuxcnc/tcl/msgs INIVAR=inivar HALCMD=halcmd LINUXCNC_EMCSH=/usr/bin/wish8.5 LINUXCNC - 2.5.0-pre2-916-g280b0ea Machine configuration directory is '/home/viesturs/linuxcnc/configs/hm2-servo' Machine configuration file is '7i43-big.ini' INIFILE=/home/viesturs/linuxcnc/configs/hm2-servo/7i43-big.ini PARAMETER_FILE=hm2-servo.var TASK=milltask HALUI= DISPLAY=axis Starting LinuxCNC... Starting LinuxCNC server program: linuxcncsvr Loading Real Time OS, RTAPI, and HAL_LIB modules Starting LinuxCNC IO program: io Shutting down and cleaning up LinuxCNC... Killing task linuxcncsvr, PID=2440 Removing HAL_LIB, RTAPI, and Real Time OS modules Removing NML shared memory segments Cleanup done Debug file information: Can not find -sec MOT -var MOT -num 1 Can not find -sec IO -var IO -num 1 Can not find -sec LINUXCNC -var NML_FILE -num 1 Can not find -sec EMC -var NML_FILE -num 1 insmod: error inserting '/usr/realtime-2.6.32-122-rtai/modules/linuxcnc/hm2_7i43.ko': -1 Invalid parameters hm2-servo.hal:46: exit value: 1 hm2-servo.hal:46: insmod failed, returned -1 See the output of 'dmesg' for more information. 2440 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND Stopping realtime threads Unloading hal components Kernel message information: [ 595.108459] I-pipe: Domain RTAI registered. [ 595.108470] RTAI[hal]: 3.8.1 mounted over IPIPE-NOTHREADS 2.6-03. [ 595.108473] RTAI[hal]: compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) . [ 595.108479] RTAI[hal]: mounted (IPIPE-NOTHREADS, IMMEDIATE (INTERNAL IRQs DISPATCHED), ISOL_CPUS_MASK: 0). [ 595.108481] PIPELINE layers: [ 595.108485] fbc53e20 9ac15d93 RTAI 200 [ 595.108488] c085cb20 0 Linux 100 [ 595.136200] RTAI[malloc]: global heap size = 2097152 bytes, BSD. [ 595.136404] RTAI[sched]: IMMEDIATE, MP, USER/KERNEL SPACE: with RTAI OWN KTASKs, kstacks pool size = 524288 bytes. [ 595.136409] RTAI[sched]: hard timer type/freq = APIC/12557105(Hz); default timing: periodic; linear timed lists. [ 595.136413] RTAI[sched]: Linux timer freq = 250 (Hz), TimeBase freq = 1808451000 hz. [ 595.136416] RTAI[sched]: timer setup = 999 ns, resched latency = 2943 ns. [ 595.136550] RTAI[usi]: enabled. [ 595.238850] RTAI[math]: loaded. [ 595.341395] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15 [ 595.350735] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3 [ 595.354947] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT [ 595.830428] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor for Smart Serial Interface, not loading driver [ 595.830437] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Version = 0, expected 0 [ 595.830442] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: NumRegisters = 5, expected 6 [ 595.830447] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: InstanceStride = 0x0004, expected 0x0040 [ 595.830451] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: MultipleRegisters = 0x001F, expected 0x003C [ 595.830456] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor! [ 595.830460] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: failed to parse Module Descriptor 5 [ 595.830471] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found! [ 596.325306] hm2: unloading [ 596.382915] RTAI[math]: unloaded. [ 596.449225] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH [ 596.464583] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded. [ 596.564043] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0). [ 596.573316] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered. [ 596.573329] RTAI[hal]: unmounted. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Scott Hasse wrote: snip-- It acts like it is sampling the encoder at the servo-thread frequency, despite the update-counters function being bound to the base-thread. When I view the configuration from axis, the base-thread does show the encoder.update-counters function bound to it. You probably are sampling at the servo thread, to avoid this you would have to do the the hm2_read at the base thread. But this is really really wasteful, much better to use a real encoder counter (and dump the base thread sucking computer resources altogether) Peter Wallace -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:55:23 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/10 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Looks like at least 2 problems, one is that the firmware and driver are different versions (that firmware is fairly ancient) and the second problame is that the config line syntax has changed (this should be fixable with man hostmot2) John Murphy sent me a firmware file that is working for him and in INI file the CONFIG line is this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT num_encoders=1 sserial_port_0=00 What am I missing as I get this error at LinuxCNC startup? The fact that it complains about not being able to find nml_file makes me think that something needs to be updated, but what exactly? Could it be that Hostmot2 driver in LinuxCNC is outdated? No I think its some other version issue (nml has nothin to do with hm2) Viesturs Here is complete error message: Print file information: RUN_IN_PLACE=no LINUXCNC_DIR= LINUXCNC_BIN_DIR=/usr/bin LINUXCNC_TCL_DIR=/usr/lib/tcltk/linuxcnc LINUXCNC_SCRIPT_DIR= LINUXCNC_RTLIB_DIR=/usr/realtime-2.6.32-122-rtai/modules/linuxcnc LINUXCNC_CONFIG_DIR= LINUXCNC_LANG_DIR=/usr/share/linuxcnc/tcl/msgs INIVAR=inivar HALCMD=halcmd LINUXCNC_EMCSH=/usr/bin/wish8.5 LINUXCNC - 2.5.0-pre2-916-g280b0ea Machine configuration directory is '/home/viesturs/linuxcnc/configs/hm2-servo' Machine configuration file is '7i43-big.ini' INIFILE=/home/viesturs/linuxcnc/configs/hm2-servo/7i43-big.ini PARAMETER_FILE=hm2-servo.var TASK=milltask HALUI= DISPLAY=axis Starting LinuxCNC... Starting LinuxCNC server program: linuxcncsvr Loading Real Time OS, RTAPI, and HAL_LIB modules Starting LinuxCNC IO program: io Shutting down and cleaning up LinuxCNC... Killing task linuxcncsvr, PID=2440 Removing HAL_LIB, RTAPI, and Real Time OS modules Removing NML shared memory segments Cleanup done Debug file information: Can not find -sec MOT -var MOT -num 1 Can not find -sec IO -var IO -num 1 Can not find -sec LINUXCNC -var NML_FILE -num 1 Can not find -sec EMC -var NML_FILE -num 1 insmod: error inserting '/usr/realtime-2.6.32-122-rtai/modules/linuxcnc/hm2_7i43.ko': -1 Invalid parameters hm2-servo.hal:46: exit value: 1 hm2-servo.hal:46: insmod failed, returned -1 See the output of 'dmesg' for more information. 2440 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND Stopping realtime threads Unloading hal components Kernel message information: [ 595.108459] I-pipe: Domain RTAI registered. [ 595.108470] RTAI[hal]: 3.8.1 mounted over IPIPE-NOTHREADS 2.6-03. [ 595.108473] RTAI[hal]: compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) . [ 595.108479] RTAI[hal]: mounted (IPIPE-NOTHREADS, IMMEDIATE (INTERNAL IRQs DISPATCHED), ISOL_CPUS_MASK: 0). [ 595.108481] PIPELINE layers: [ 595.108485] fbc53e20 9ac15d93 RTAI 200 [ 595.108488] c085cb20 0 Linux 100 [ 595.136200] RTAI[malloc]: global heap size = 2097152 bytes, BSD. [ 595.136404] RTAI[sched]: IMMEDIATE, MP, USER/KERNEL SPACE: with RTAI OWN KTASKs, kstacks pool size = 524288 bytes. [ 595.136409] RTAI[sched]: hard timer type/freq = APIC/12557105(Hz); default timing: periodic; linear timed lists. [ 595.136413] RTAI[sched]: Linux timer freq = 250 (Hz), TimeBase freq = 1808451000 hz. [ 595.136416] RTAI[sched]: timer setup = 999 ns, resched latency = 2943 ns. [ 595.136550] RTAI[usi]: enabled. [ 595.238850] RTAI[math]: loaded. [ 595.341395] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15 [ 595.350735] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3 [ 595.354947] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT [ 595.830428] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor for Smart Serial Interface, not loading driver [ 595.830437] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Version = 0, expected 0 [ 595.830442] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: NumRegisters = 5, expected 6 [ 595.830447] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: InstanceStride = 0x0004, expected 0x0040 [ 595.830451] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: MultipleRegisters = 0x001F, expected 0x003C [ 595.830456] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor! [ 595.830460] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: failed to parse Module Descriptor 5 [ 595.830471] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found! [ 596.325306] hm2: unloading [ 596.382915] RTAI[math]: unloaded. [ 596.449225] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH [ 596.464583] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded. [ 596.564043] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0). [ 596.573316] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered. [ 596.573329] RTAI[hal]: unmounted. -- This SF email is
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: No I think its some other version issue (nml has nothin to do with hm2) Ok, what else could it be? Last weak I downloaded the latest-at-that-moment buildbot version. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:11:21 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: No I think its some other version issue (nml has nothin to do with hm2) Ok, what else could it be? Last weak I downloaded the latest-at-that-moment buildbot version. Viesturs No idea but hm2 has not changed and NML is a totally different area of LinuxCNC (isnt there some bug where you have to delete some nml file when upgrading LinuxCNC?) -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:24:34 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: No idea but hm2 has not changed and NML is a totally different area of LinuxCNC (isnt there some bug where you have to delete some nml file when upgrading LinuxCNC?) AFAIK that was, when upgraded from 2.3.x to 2.4.x Peter, what am I supposed to have on PC for smart-serial module to work? The only thing I know of is inuxCNC 2.5.something. Is there anything else? Thats it Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
With respect to messing it up, the hal and ini file are as they are directly generated from pncconf. The source simply does an input and I am doing that to keep the configuration modular. I run various configurations on this machine, and can pick and choose configurations by sourcing different sub-hal files in the custom hal. On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 9:31 AM, Viesturs Lācis viesturs.la...@gmail.comwrote: 2012/3/17 Scott Hasse scott.ha...@gmail.com: [HAL] HALUI = halui HALFILE = 3300_mill.hal HALFILE = custom.hal POSTGUI_HALFILE = custom_postgui.hal SHUTDOWN = shutdown.hal ... the custom.hal file: source analog-in.hal the analog-in.hal file: #http://linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/hal/rtcomps.html#sec:Encoder # hm2_5i23.0.gpio.048.in is the freqeuncy in # load the component loadrt encoder num_chan=1 setp encoder.0.counter-mode true #encoder.0.phase-A net analog-A encoder.0.phase-A = hm2_5i23.0.gpio.048.in # set the velocity of the encoder for a proper scale setp encoder.0.position-scale 1.0 # set the volicity out to feed the analog input net analog-1 = encoder.0.velocity # add the component to the thread addf encoder.update-counters base-thread addf encoder.capture-position servo-thread Why are You messing it all up? In INI file You load custom.hal file, but in that You tell - look in analog-in.hal file. And then all the stuff is hidden in analog-in.hal file... Any particular reason not to specify analog-in.hal file already in INI file or at least copy/paste all the commands in custom.hal file? I am telling this, because it is the first time I see source command in HAL. I do not remember seeing it in docs too, so I have no idea, how it works or how it affects the performance. The same goes for alias pins in Your main HAL file. Have You tried routing the frequency input directly to 5i23 card? IMHO that way You would check, if You are exceeding opto-isolators' capabilities. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
But this is really really wasteful Presuming my PC can handle a reasonable base-thread rate, is it really wasteful of a scarce resource? It seems if I want to use a real encoder counter given my configuration I'll need a custom 5i23 firmware? Thanks! Scott On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 10:01 AM, Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com wrote: On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Scott Hasse wrote: snip-- It acts like it is sampling the encoder at the servo-thread frequency, despite the update-counters function being bound to the base-thread. When I view the configuration from axis, the base-thread does show the encoder.update-counters function bound to it. You probably are sampling at the servo thread, to avoid this you would have to do the the hm2_read at the base thread. But this is really really wasteful, much better to use a real encoder counter (and dump the base thread sucking computer resources altogether) Peter Wallace -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Peter, what am I supposed to have on PC for smart-serial module to work? The only thing I know of is inuxCNC 2.5.something. Is there anything else? Thats it Then I have only the buildbot version to blame. That does not sound encouraging, because it will take another 2 hours :( with my connection to get all the build-deps, so that I myself can build LinuxCNC from master. I will report back about my success. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie)
Thanks for your responses. It seems I have to give LinuxCNC a closer look. There is a low cost commercial alternative in MACH 3. I guess you have an opinions on that system too? I know it's based on Windows with some kind of realtime extension who doesn't sound too good in ears. My impression is that it doesn't look professional after a brief examination. It also seems to be mainly focused on stepper motor systems who I believe is off topic in heavy duty systems. My assumption about Tarjectory planning was based on Anders Wallins message as he mentioned some problem with limited look-ahead, I suppose this affects the shape of the calculated path in some cases? / Roger Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:18:54 +0200 From: Anders Wallin anders.e.e.wal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory Planning To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) [1] http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TrajectoryControl -- This wiki page has notes on the exact-stop trajectory planner http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Simple_Tp_Notes The reasoning and math behind the current G64-blending code in LinuxCNC is not well documented.. Improvements for 1) jerk-limited control and 2) better lookahead have been discussed from time to time but so far the commits/patches have been missing.. Anders -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
On 3/17/2012 9:34 AM, gene heskett wrote: Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mark While I tend to agree that we need to polish up our sales pitch and material, one of the things I think we need to emphasize is the level of support, I think it is fantastic compared to anything I've ever seen before, where software packages that cost $2500/month, often have bugs that don't get fixed till the next annual, send lots more money, update. That is the usual situation at a tv station, where the software that handles Traffic, is the heart and soul of the business model. LinuxCNC with its random releases that to my knowledge have only once or twice not been 100% backwards compatible, has amazed me. But I guess I'm getting used to the Linux way of doing things. Take amanda, the backup program, where I have been playing the canary in the coal mine for the bleeding edge development versions for nearly 10 years running it for 14. Only one, non-compatible update has ever taken place and that was at least a decade ago. It gets broken by support library changes regularly, most recently by a glib-utils update, but was fixed in 3 days. That rapidity of fixing things we have no control over means we get broken more often than an M$ product is, but we still fix it 10x faster too. IMO, this rapid response to problems, should be quite near the top of the list of advantages to choosing LinuxCNC. Cheers, Gene Gene, Support is one of the things I mentioned, and IMO, probably one of our more important things to market. We do have a bunch of different channels available for support, from this mailing list, to the IRC, to our own forum and to the LinuxCNC forum on CNCzone. Without that support, I'd never have gotten my machine up and running. Mark -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie)
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Roger Holmquist wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:28:05 +0100 From: Roger Holmquist ro...@abcnc.se Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie) Thanks for your responses. It seems I have to give LinuxCNC a closer look. There is a low cost commercial alternative in MACH 3. I guess you have an opinions on that system too? I know it's based on Windows with some kind of realtime extension who doesn't sound too good in ears. My impression is that it doesn't look professional after a brief examination. It also seems to be mainly focused on stepper motor systems who I believe is off topic in heavy duty systems. My assumption about Tarjectory planning was based on Anders Wallins message as he mentioned some problem with limited look-ahead, I suppose this affects the shape of the calculated path in some cases? / Roger I think the issue with lookahead is that LinuxCNC will not move any faster than is possible with the constraint of being able to stop an the end of the current move. This is normally a good thing! I dont think this is an issue for most standard machining but where it is an issue is high speed profiling or cutting, especially when the CAM program generates the profile as a large number of straight line segments. at least thats my (limited) understanding Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Viesturs Lācis viesturs.la...@gmail.com: I will report back about my success. So I uninstalled the buildbot version, got the source code and in terminal executed: sudo apt-get build-dep emc2 ./autogen.sh ./configure The ./configure script terminates with this error message (I copied all the lines from the first mention of python): ... checking for Python support... yes checking python version... OK checking version of python libraries... python2.6 checking match between tk and Tkinter versions... 8.5 checking location of Python header files... /usr/include/python2.6 checking for Python headers... -I/usr/include/python2.6 checking for Python libraries... -lpthread -ldl -lutil checking whether the Boost::Python headers are available... no configure: error: boost::python is required to build LinuxCNC What else am I missing? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
Scott- Those are really excellent write-ups! I agree with you about the newbie first impressions. I very nearly went with Mach when I built my first machine 2 years ago. It wasn't until I visited Jon Elson that I saw first hand what a capable piece of software LinuxCNC really is that I made my decision. What I observed was that the documentation manuals were very good if a bit challenging for a newbie in places. The wiki entries are uneven (to be expected, I suppose) and could often use some clarification. For me, at least, thorough case sudies like Scott's can be very useful. I'm at the point now that I can probably help out in improving the wiki for new users and intend to do so soon. Any suggestions on how to proceed would be welcome. Greg From: Scott Hasse scott.ha...@gmail.com To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2012 9:19 AM Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie As a relative LinuxCNC newbie, I can say that a more clear presentation of the capabilities of the system would have made it less daunting to choose LinuxCNC. As a hobby CNC user, I had been exposed to probably 20 half-baked open source CAM tools/packages and been impressed with a total of zero. As a hacker space, we were philosophically committed to open source and so pursued LinuxCNC, but given that previous CAM experience I thought it was going to be a down the rabbit hole experience. I was greatly pleased to find out not only that LinuxCNC is extremely mature and stable, but that the architecture is well-thought-out and well executed, there are configuration generators for the most common use cases, a choice of clean functional extensible GUIs, and so many other batteries included that I absolutely was not expecting. Not to mention what others have said with respect to the helpfulness and openness of this support community. I'm now through two conversions and could not be more pleased: http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/3300MillConversion http://code.google.com/p/sector67-sandbox/wiki/ProjectSheetCake and would be willing to pitch in the documentation I have and additional videos, etc. to help more accurately represent the excellent state of this software and community to prospective users. My two cents, Scott On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 8:34 AM, gene heskett ghesk...@wdtv.com wrote: On Saturday, March 17, 2012 09:05:00 AM Mark Wendt (Contractor) did opine: On 3/16/2012 10:31 PM, Stuart Stevenson wrote: Gentlemen, Just how do you 'market' a free item/product? The free LinuxCNC software is not even a loss leader. The whole thing is free - all the time - even the advice - even the help. Just asking. thanks Stuart Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mark While I tend to agree that we need to polish up our sales pitch and material, one of the things I think we need to emphasize is the level of support, I think it is fantastic compared to anything I've ever seen before, where software packages that cost $2500/month, often have bugs that don't get fixed till the next annual, send lots more money, update. That is the usual situation at a tv station, where the software that handles Traffic, is the heart and soul of the business model. LinuxCNC with its random releases that to my knowledge have only once or twice not been 100% backwards compatible, has amazed me. But I guess I'm getting used to the Linux way of doing things. Take amanda, the backup program, where I have been playing the canary in the coal mine for the bleeding edge development versions for nearly 10 years running it for 14. Only one, non-compatible update has ever taken place and that was at least a decade ago. It gets broken by support library changes regularly, most recently by a glib-utils update, but was fixed in 3 days. That rapidity of fixing things we have no control over means we get broken more often than an M$ product is, but we still fix it 10x faster too. IMO, this rapid response to problems, should be quite near the top of the list of advantages to choosing LinuxCNC. Cheers, Gene -- There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On 3/17/2012 12:52 PM, Viesturs Lācis wrote: 2012/3/17 Viesturs Lācisviesturs.la...@gmail.com: I will report back about my success. So I uninstalled the buildbot version, got the source code and in terminal executed: sudo apt-get build-dep emc2 ./autogen.sh ./configure The ./configure script terminates with this error message (I copied all the lines from the first mention of python): ... checking for Python support... yes checking python version... OK checking version of python libraries... python2.6 checking match between tk and Tkinter versions... 8.5 checking location of Python header files... /usr/include/python2.6 checking for Python headers... -I/usr/include/python2.6 checking for Python libraries... -lpthread -ldl -lutil checking whether the Boost::Python headers are available... no configure: error: boost::python is required to build LinuxCNC What else am I missing? Viesturs You're missing at least the Boost.Python libraries for C++ (gcc). Dunno what else you're missing since I don't know what you have on your machine. ;-) Mark -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Mark Wendt (Contractor) mark.we...@nrl.navy.mil: You're missing at least the Boost.Python libraries for C++ (gcc). Dunno what else you're missing since I don't know what you have on your machine. ;-) I just want to test one 8i20 servo drive, no real machine to control. Where can I find, which exactly version of gcc and if there are any other packages as well (gcc dependencies, for example)? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie)
On Sat, 2012-03-17 at 17:28 +0100, Roger Holmquist wrote: Thanks for your responses. It seems I have to give LinuxCNC a closer look. There is a low cost commercial alternative in MACH 3. I guess you have an opinions on that system too? I know it's based on Windows with some kind of realtime extension who doesn't sound too good in ears. The Mach-LinuxCNC-FlashCut-TurboCNC-etcetera debate is an opinion magnet, but I think what really matters, does X or Y do what you need it to do? In most cases any of the popular systems will work very well if implemented properly. There have been Mach users that have been talked into trying LinuxCNC and many, but not all of them, have returned to using Mach. For me, open source and getting under the hood with LinuxCNC suits me very well. My impression is that it doesn't look professional after a brief examination. In my opinion, none of the diy CNC systems look professional yet, but I think that issue goes away pretty quickly after one starts using the system and gets a feel for how the system feels. It also seems to be mainly focused on stepper motor systems who I believe is off topic in heavy duty systems. My 3500 pound mill with steppers works well enough: http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/Shizuoka/ Tormach has a good paper on why they chose steppers: http://www.tormach.com/engineering.html but I'm still a fan of servos. My assumption about Tarjectory planning was based on Anders Wallins message as he mentioned some problem with limited look-ahead, I suppose this affects the shape of the calculated path in some cases? / Roger I think every trajectory planning scheme at some point will have perfectly valid flaws to someone. I would consider trying to find a working system that closely matches what your requirements are, download the trial software if available and try it out. If the software is acceptable, copy the example system as closely as possible. I suspect that as you learn more, your requirements will change, but hopefully this will get you closer to what you want on the first steps. -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewicz mic...@wp.pl: sudo apt-get install libboost-python-dev Thanks, that worked! ./configure completed successfully sudo make completedsuccessfully sudo make setuid terminates with error: viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev/src$ sudo make setuid make: Entering directory `/home/viesturs/linuxcnc-dev/src' chown root ../bin/linuxcnc_module_helper chown: cannot access `../bin/linuxcnc_module_helper': No such file or directory make: *** [setuid] Error 1 make: Leaving directory `/home/viesturs/linuxcnc-dev/src' viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev/src$ What could cause that? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
Try use make without sudo W dniu 17.03.2012 18:33, Viesturs Lācis pisze: 2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewiczmic...@wp.pl: sudo apt-get install libboost-python-dev Thanks, that worked! ./configure completed successfully sudo make completedsuccessfully sudo make setuid terminates with error: viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev/src$ sudo make setuid make: Entering directory `/home/viesturs/linuxcnc-dev/src' chown root ../bin/linuxcnc_module_helper chown: cannot access `../bin/linuxcnc_module_helper': No such file or directory make: *** [setuid] Error 1 make: Leaving directory `/home/viesturs/linuxcnc-dev/src' viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev/src$ What could cause that? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie)
Roger Holmquist wrote: Thanks for your responses. It seems I have to give LinuxCNC a closer look. There is a low cost commercial alternative in MACH 3. I guess you have an opinions on that system too? I know it's based on Windows with some kind of realtime extension who doesn't sound too good in ears. My impression is that it doesn't look professional after a brief examination. It also seems to be mainly focused on stepper motor systems who I believe is off topic in heavy duty systems. Right, Mach is designed primarily with step/direction control in mind, and cartesian machines. My assumption about Tarjectory planning was based on Anders Wallins message as he mentioned some problem with limited look-ahead, I suppose this affects the shape of the calculated path in some cases? No, it only affects speed. The optimal lookahead would be able to run at commanded velocity in cases where long strings of short linear and arc moves are coded, being able to see many lines ahead that there is no deviation large enough to require slowing down to stay below the maximum acceleration set for the machine. The current trajectory planning does not look that far ahead, and so will never allow you to go so fast that it can't stop after the next move. So, at some level, it is just one block look ahead. This looks easy to fix in the narrow sense, but when a program could have any possible mixture of linear and arc moves on a multi-axis machine, it starts to get complicated. You do have a choice of how much blending of move corners to allow in your program, via G61 and G64 commands. Jon -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewicz mic...@wp.pl: Try use make without sudo Thanks, You are right, there is no sudo in wiki page. I still get some errors, so I deleted the code, will download it again and then retry. BTW a little off-topic: the command to clone the source from git is: git clone git://git.linuxcnc.org/git/emc2.git [destination folder, I put it in] linuxcnc-dev Shouldn't the renaming to LinuxCNC affect also the git? If I visit http://git.linuxcnc.org/gitweb, the first line still says EMC2... Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
If you execute 'git clean -x -d -f' in top of linuxcnc source directory, it will reset to state after clone regards Michael W dniu 17.03.2012 19:13, Viesturs Lācis pisze: 2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewiczmic...@wp.pl: Try use make without sudo Thanks, You are right, there is no sudo in wiki page. I still get some errors, so I deleted the code, will download it again and then retry. BTW a little off-topic: the command to clone the source from git is: git clone git://git.linuxcnc.org/git/emc2.git [destination folder, I put it in] linuxcnc-dev Shouldn't the renaming to LinuxCNC affect also the git? If I visit http://git.linuxcnc.org/gitweb, the first line still says EMC2... Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewicz mic...@wp.pl: If you execute 'git clean -x -d -f' in top of linuxcnc source directory, it will reset to state after clone Thanks, I will try to remember! And now what? I ran all these commands: cd src ./autogen.sh ./configure make make install-menus sudo make setuid They all completed successfully - I did not see any warning messages. But in Applications - CNC I have 4 items - Getting started guide and 3 manuals - Hal, Integrator's and User's manuals, their icons are question marks and nothing happens, if I try to open HAL manual, remaining 3 docs do appear. But I do not see a way to run the LinuxCNC. No menu entries... Also in terminal from home directory typing linuxcnc and hitting enter returns error message that such a command is not found. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie (TheNewbie)
2012/3/17 Roger Holmquist ro...@abcnc.se: Thanks for your responses. It seems I have to give LinuxCNC a closer look. There is a low cost commercial alternative in MACH 3. I guess you have an opinions on that system too? That is pretty much provocative question :)) Here is my thoughts, why Mach _is not_ an alternative to LinuxCNC (but that is just my personal opinion): http://www.cnczone.com/forums/1046479-post76.html I address some of Your points there, like being realtime and also the looks of the application. It also seems to be mainly focused on stepper motor systems who I believe is off topic in heavy duty systems. This will run in a little off-topic by me... You can run heavy duty machines with steppers, but then the performance will suffer - You will have to leave big safety margin in terms of load to motors (either move slower or use way much larger motors) as currently there is no safe and reliable way to recover on the fly from lost steps. Last year I had a discussion with Festo people in Hannouver Messe about this topic - they are offering pseido-servo control system, which consists of: 1) stepper motors 2) encoders on motors for feedback 3) controller, in which error in feedback loop is fixed in classical manner - add throttle, when motor is falling behind I managed to left their representative without any arguments as this approach totally sucks - if the load on motor is large enough for it to start losing steps, then there is no sense to increase the RPM - it will continue to lose steps. It has been proposed on this mailing list that completely new approach would required - all the remaining joints should slow down so that the one with lost steps remains in the correct place with respect to other. I guess some special drive, that could increase the current for a short time to increase motor torque, would allow to use the classical approach, but I will leave that for people, who actually do understand something about stepper drives and the principles, how they work. Kirk mentioned that he has a mill with steppers, there must be tons of other examples of serious stepper-equipped machines. I am now struggling with my first servo machine. The conclusion - steppers may not look attractive in terms of their performance, when compared to servos, but at least I am able to set them up and get running. For me servos is different story... On the other hand, Keling motors, USDigital encoders and Mesa drives are not that much more than cost of stepper system, which makes servos very attractive to use. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Installing_LinuxCNC#Running_emc2 running script is in ../scripts directory W dniu 17.03.2012 19:51, Viesturs Lācis pisze: 2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewiczmic...@wp.pl: If you execute 'git clean -x -d -f' in top of linuxcnc source directory, it will reset to state after clone Thanks, I will try to remember! And now what? I ran all these commands: cd src ./autogen.sh ./configure make make install-menus sudo make setuid They all completed successfully - I did not see any warning messages. But in Applications - CNC I have 4 items - Getting started guide and 3 manuals - Hal, Integrator's and User's manuals, their icons are question marks and nothing happens, if I try to open HAL manual, remaining 3 docs do appear. But I do not see a way to run the LinuxCNC. No menu entries... Also in terminal from home directory typing linuxcnc and hitting enter returns error message that such a command is not found. Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewicz mic...@wp.pl: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Installing_LinuxCNC#Running_emc2 running script is in ../scripts directory Thank You! It is working! That is for run-in-place, but I did not specify that. Did it automatically build with --run-in-place? If so, how can I build it in a normal way - as if it was installed from deb package? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Michał Geszkiewicz mic...@wp.pl: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Installing_LinuxCNC#Running_emc2 running script is in ../scripts directory Thank You! It is working! That is for run-in-place, but I did not specify that. Did it automatically build with --run-in-place? If so, how can I build it in a normal way - as if it was installed from deb package? Anyway, I still get this in error message: Can not find -sec MOT -var MOT -num 1 Can not find -sec IO -var IO -num 1 Can not find -sec TASK -var TASK_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec DISPLAY -var DISPLAY_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec LINUXCNC -var NML_FILE -num 1 Can not find -sec EMC -var NML_FILE -num 1 13992 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND Stopping realtime threads Unloading hal components Does anybody know, what do these lines mean? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
Sorry, for the double-post, do not know, how did I do that... 2012. gada 17. marts 15:13 Viesturs Lācis viesturs.la...@gmail.com rakstīja: Anyway, I still get this in error message: Can not find -sec MOT -var MOT -num 1 Can not find -sec IO -var IO -num 1 Can not find -sec TASK -var TASK_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec DISPLAY -var DISPLAY_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec LINUXCNC -var NML_FILE -num 1 Can not find -sec EMC -var NML_FILE -num 1 13992 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND Stopping realtime threads Unloading hal components I tried sample configs, LinuxCNC starts up normally. Both hm2-servo and hm2-stepper. The conclusion - it does not like the BOSSV.BIT firmware, because it does not start with it, regardless, if I have sserial_port_0=00 in CONFIG line in INI file or no. Peter, can You provide me with a firmware for 7i43-400 card with smart-serial module and at least 1 encoder module? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
Greetings And now what? I ran all these commands: cd src ./autogen.sh ./configure make make install-menus sudo make setuid They all completed successfully - I did not see any warning messages. But in Applications - CNC I have 4 items - Getting started guide and 3 manuals - Hal, Integrator's and User's manuals, their icons are question marks and nothing happens, if I try to open HAL manual, remaining 3 docs do appear. But I do not see a way to run the LinuxCNC. No menu entries... Also in terminal from home directory typing linuxcnc and hitting enter returns error message that such a command is not found. Viesturs Viesturs I think I can help with that one. cd to the directory where you did all your compilations e.g. emc2-dev or linuxcnc-dev $ . scripts/rip-environment $ linuxcnc First line after prompt is dot space scripts etc John Prentice -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 15:21:33 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 Sorry, for the double-post, do not know, how did I do that... 2012. gada 17. marts 15:13 Viesturs L??cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com rakst??ja: Anyway, I still get this in error message: Can not find -sec MOT -var MOT -num 1 Can not find -sec IO -var IO -num 1 Can not find -sec TASK -var TASK_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec DISPLAY -var DISPLAY_LD_PRELOAD -num 1 Can not find -sec LINUXCNC -var NML_FILE -num 1 Can not find -sec EMC -var NML_FILE -num 1 13992 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND Stopping realtime threads Unloading hal components I tried sample configs, LinuxCNC starts up normally. Both hm2-servo and hm2-stepper. The conclusion - it does not like the BOSSV.BIT firmware, because it does not start with it, regardless, if I have sserial_port_0=00 in CONFIG line in INI file or no. I cannot see how any of those errors are eveny vaguely related to the bitfile Peter, can You provide me with a firmware for 7i43-400 card with smart-serial module and at least 1 encoder module? Viesturs I would pretty much guarantee that it will not help, you have non-bitfile related troubles (maybe your hal or .ini files) Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: I cannot see how any of those errors are eveny vaguely related to the bitfile I do understand that. The fact is that it works with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43/SVST4_4B.BIT num_encoders=3 num_pwmgens=3 num_stepgens=0 It does not work with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT num_encoders=1 sserial_port_0=00 It even works with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/SVST4_4.BIT num_encoders=3 sserial_port_0=00 (wrong firmware, but requested to load sserial module). I tried in the same INI file (hm2-servo sample config) - commented out one, uncommented the other and vice versa. If it would be something wrong in HAL file, it would display appropriate message - if particular pin did not exist etc. But the error I receive is something totally out of anything I have ever seen. Could You, please, confirm, if the syntax for loading sserial module is correct? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
On Saturday, March 17, 2012 04:01:38 PM Mark Wendt (Contractor) did opine: On 3/17/2012 9:34 AM, gene heskett wrote: Stuart, Marketing is marketing, whether for profit or for non-profit. Even if free, you still want to be able to give it away. Like Kent mentioned, Case Studies and perhaps Testimonials are our Free advertising. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be in big, bold letters for folks looking at our stuff and wondering whether it's worth their time and effort to install the software, and become part of our user base. We need to show them what the software can do for them, how our support works, and how it all benefits them. Otherwise, if they see no benefit, they'll say the hell with it and become a Mach user. Mark While I tend to agree that we need to polish up our sales pitch and material, one of the things I think we need to emphasize is the level of support, I think it is fantastic compared to anything I've ever seen before, where software packages that cost $2500/month, often have bugs that don't get fixed till the next annual, send lots more money, update. That is the usual situation at a tv station, where the software that handles Traffic, is the heart and soul of the business model. LinuxCNC with its random releases that to my knowledge have only once or twice not been 100% backwards compatible, has amazed me. But I guess I'm getting used to the Linux way of doing things. Take amanda, the backup program, where I have been playing the canary in the coal mine for the bleeding edge development versions for nearly 10 years running it for 14. Only one, non-compatible update has ever taken place and that was at least a decade ago. It gets broken by support library changes regularly, most recently by a glib-utils update, but was fixed in 3 days. That rapidity of fixing things we have no control over means we get broken more often than an M$ product is, but we still fix it 10x faster too. IMO, this rapid response to problems, should be quite near the top of the list of advantages to choosing LinuxCNC. Cheers, Gene Gene, Support is one of the things I mentioned, and IMO, probably one of our more important things to market. We do have a bunch of different channels available for support, from this mailing list, to the IRC, to our own forum and to the LinuxCNC forum on CNCzone. Without that support, I'd never have gotten my machine up and running. Mark And I have to tip my hat in the same direction Mark. :) There are quite a goodly number of folks on this list and/or IRC, that I owe a hand cooler to, and if I ever get under the same roof, I'll see to it no one has a smoking hand. In fact, my GMC fired up an hour ago for the first time in several months, with a fresh engine in it, so hitting NAMES might not be out of the question if they hold one this summer. 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) My web page: http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:02:42 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: I cannot see how any of those errors are eveny vaguely related to the bitfile I do understand that. The fact is that it works with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43/SVST4_4B.BIT num_encoders=3 num_pwmgens=3 num_stepgens=0 It does not work with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT num_encoders=1 sserial_port_0=00 It even works with this: CONFIG=firmware=hm2/7i43-4/SVST4_4.BIT num_encoders=3 sserial_port_0=00 (wrong firmware, but requested to load sserial module). I tried in the same INI file (hm2-servo sample config) - commented out one, uncommented the other and vice versa. If it would be something wrong in HAL file, it would display appropriate message - if particular pin did not exist etc. But the error I receive is something totally out of anything I have ever seen. Could You, please, confirm, if the syntax for loading sserial module is correct? Looks right, though it probably should have the right number of 0's or X's for the number of sserial channels the config contains what does dmesg say? is this 2.5? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Looks right, though it probably should have the right number of 0's or X's for the number of sserial channels the config contains How do I find that out? The firmware is BOSSV.BIT, the one You sent to John Murphy a week or two ago. what does dmesg say? I copied only the part, which is usually in the error message: [ 102.975901] I-pipe: Domain RTAI registered. [ 102.975913] RTAI[hal]: 3.8.1 mounted over IPIPE-NOTHREADS 2.6-03. [ 102.975916] RTAI[hal]: compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) . [ 102.975923] RTAI[hal]: mounted (IPIPE-NOTHREADS, IMMEDIATE (INTERNAL IRQs DISPATCHED), ISOL_CPUS_MASK: 0). [ 102.975925] PIPELINE layers: [ 102.975929] f81efe20 9ac15d93 RTAI 200 [ 102.975932] c085cb20 0 Linux 100 [ 103.004497] RTAI[malloc]: global heap size = 2097152 bytes, BSD. [ 103.004681] RTAI[sched]: IMMEDIATE, MP, USER/KERNEL SPACE: with RTAI OWN KTASKs, kstacks pool size = 524288 bytes. [ 103.004686] RTAI[sched]: hard timer type/freq = APIC/12557095(Hz); default timing: periodic; linear timed lists. [ 103.004690] RTAI[sched]: Linux timer freq = 250 (Hz), TimeBase freq = 1808082000 hz. [ 103.004693] RTAI[sched]: timer setup = 999 ns, resched latency = 2944 ns. [ 103.004822] RTAI[usi]: enabled. [ 103.095251] RTAI[math]: loaded. [ 103.327291] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15 [ 103.333112] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3 [ 103.335184] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT [ 103.792562] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor for Smart Serial Interface, not loading driver [ 103.792571] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Version = 0, expected 0 [ 103.792576] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: NumRegisters = 5, expected 6 [ 103.792581] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: InstanceStride = 0x0004, expected 0x0040 [ 103.792586] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: MultipleRegisters = 0x001F, expected 0x003C [ 103.792590] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor! [ 103.792595] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: failed to parse Module Descriptor 5 [ 103.792605] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found! [ 104.221146] hm2: unloading [ 104.365422] RTAI[math]: unloaded. [ 104.424819] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH [ 104.440290] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded. [ 104.540035] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0). [ 104.543841] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered. [ 104.543853] RTAI[hal]: unmounted. viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev$ is this 2.5? Freshly (less than 2 hours ago) built from master. Still warm :)) Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:29:27 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Looks right, though it probably should have the right number of 0's or X's for the number of sserial channels the config contains How do I find that out? The firmware is BOSSV.BIT, the one You sent to John Murphy a week or two ago. what does dmesg say? I copied only the part, which is usually in the error message: [ 102.975901] I-pipe: Domain RTAI registered. [ 102.975913] RTAI[hal]: 3.8.1 mounted over IPIPE-NOTHREADS 2.6-03. [ 102.975916] RTAI[hal]: compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) . [ 102.975923] RTAI[hal]: mounted (IPIPE-NOTHREADS, IMMEDIATE (INTERNAL IRQs DISPATCHED), ISOL_CPUS_MASK: 0). [ 102.975925] PIPELINE layers: [ 102.975929] f81efe20 9ac15d93 RTAI 200 [ 102.975932] c085cb20 0 Linux 100 [ 103.004497] RTAI[malloc]: global heap size = 2097152 bytes, BSD. [ 103.004681] RTAI[sched]: IMMEDIATE, MP, USER/KERNEL SPACE: with RTAI OWN KTASKs, kstacks pool size = 524288 bytes. [ 103.004686] RTAI[sched]: hard timer type/freq = APIC/12557095(Hz); default timing: periodic; linear timed lists. [ 103.004690] RTAI[sched]: Linux timer freq = 250 (Hz), TimeBase freq = 1808082000 hz. [ 103.004693] RTAI[sched]: timer setup = 999 ns, resched latency = 2944 ns. [ 103.004822] RTAI[usi]: enabled. [ 103.095251] RTAI[math]: loaded. [ 103.327291] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15 [ 103.333112] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3 [ 103.335184] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT [ 103.792562] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor for Smart Serial Interface, not loading driver [ 103.792571] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Version = 0, expected 0 [ 103.792576] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: NumRegisters = 5, expected 6 [ 103.792581] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: InstanceStride = 0x0004, expected 0x0040 [ 103.792586] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: MultipleRegisters = 0x001F, expected 0x003C [ 103.792590] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor! [ 103.792595] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: failed to parse Module Descriptor 5 [ 103.792605] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found! [ 104.221146] hm2: unloading [ 104.365422] RTAI[math]: unloaded. [ 104.424819] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH [ 104.440290] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded. [ 104.540035] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0). [ 104.543841] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered. [ 104.543853] RTAI[hal]: unmounted. viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev$ is this 2.5? Freshly (less than 2 hours ago) built from master. Still warm :)) Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Oh OK its a ancient bit file (dmesg is much more useful) Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Oh OK its a ancient bit file (dmesg is much more useful) So that means that You will send me something else, right? :)) Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Peter C. Wallace wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 13:33:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Viesturs L?cis wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:29:27 -0400 From: [UTF-8] Viesturs L?cis viesturs.la...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43 2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Looks right, though it probably should have the right number of 0's or X's for the number of sserial channels the config contains How do I find that out? The firmware is BOSSV.BIT, the one You sent to John Murphy a week or two ago. what does dmesg say? I copied only the part, which is usually in the error message: [ 102.975901] I-pipe: Domain RTAI registered. [ 102.975913] RTAI[hal]: 3.8.1 mounted over IPIPE-NOTHREADS 2.6-03. [ 102.975916] RTAI[hal]: compiled with gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) . [ 102.975923] RTAI[hal]: mounted (IPIPE-NOTHREADS, IMMEDIATE (INTERNAL IRQs DISPATCHED), ISOL_CPUS_MASK: 0). [ 102.975925] PIPELINE layers: [ 102.975929] f81efe20 9ac15d93 RTAI 200 [ 102.975932] c085cb20 0 Linux 100 [ 103.004497] RTAI[malloc]: global heap size = 2097152 bytes, BSD. [ 103.004681] RTAI[sched]: IMMEDIATE, MP, USER/KERNEL SPACE: with RTAI OWN KTASKs, kstacks pool size = 524288 bytes. [ 103.004686] RTAI[sched]: hard timer type/freq = APIC/12557095(Hz); default timing: periodic; linear timed lists. [ 103.004690] RTAI[sched]: Linux timer freq = 250 (Hz), TimeBase freq = 1808082000 hz. [ 103.004693] RTAI[sched]: timer setup = 999 ns, resched latency = 2944 ns. [ 103.004822] RTAI[usi]: enabled. [ 103.095251] RTAI[math]: loaded. [ 103.327291] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15 [ 103.333112] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3 [ 103.335184] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43-4/BOSSV.BIT [ 103.792562] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor for Smart Serial Interface, not loading driver [ 103.792571] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: Version = 0, expected 0 [ 103.792576] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: NumRegisters = 5, expected 6 [ 103.792581] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: InstanceStride = 0x0004, expected 0x0040 [ 103.792586] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: MultipleRegisters = 0x001F, expected 0x003C [ 103.792590] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: inconsistent Module Descriptor! [ 103.792595] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: failed to parse Module Descriptor 5 [ 103.792605] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found! [ 104.221146] hm2: unloading [ 104.365422] RTAI[math]: unloaded. [ 104.424819] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH [ 104.440290] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded. [ 104.540035] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0). [ 104.543841] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered. [ 104.543853] RTAI[hal]: unmounted. viesturs@ubuntu:~/linuxcnc-dev$ is this 2.5? Freshly (less than 2 hours ago) built from master. Still warm :)) Viesturs Those number do not match what I have for the BOSSVSS config so that is not a current bit file (John Murphy must have sent you an old one by mistake) Configuration Name: HOSTMOT2 General configuration information: Module: SSerial There are 1 of SSerial in configuration Version: 0 Registers: 6 BaseAddress: 5A00 ClockFrequency: 50.000 MHz note the # of registers -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Smart-serial and 7i43
2012/3/17 Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com: Those number do not match what I have for the BOSSVSS config so that is not a current bit file (John Murphy must have sent you an old one by mistake) Configuration Name: HOSTMOT2 General configuration information: Module: SSerial There are 1 of SSerial in configuration Version: 0 Registers: 6 BaseAddress: 5A00 ClockFrequency: 50.000 MHz note the # of registers Yes, I noticed that line, which told that there were 5 registers, but 6 were expected. Could You, please, send me the current bit file? Viesturs -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory
On 3/17/2012 4:12 PM, emc-users-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: In fact, my GMC fired up an hour ago for the first time in several months, with a fresh engine in it, so hitting NAMES might not be out of the question if they hold one this summer. Cheers, Gene NAMES is April 21, 22 in Yak Arena, Wyandotte Michigan. There is limited space there, but they did give EMC a space last year. The CNC workshop is in June in Ann Arbor MI, and will of course be all CNC. ron ginger -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory planning and other topics from a EMC(LinuxCNC) newbie
gene heskett wrote: There are quite a goodly number of folks on this list and/or IRC, that I owe a hand cooler to, and if I ever get under the same roof, I'll see to it no one has a smoking hand. In fact, my GMC fired up an hour ago for the first time in several months, with a fresh engine in it, so hitting NAMES might not be out of the question if they hold one this summer. NAMES is dead, as planned by the controlling members of the society. They wanted it to be a REAL small get-together for hard-core model builders. They moved back to the Yack arena as even the Southgate community center was way too big for them. There will be a CNC Workshop hosted by Digital Machinist at the Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor June 21 to 23. Jon -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
It just makes difficult for any observer to understand, what is going on there. If it works and You understand it - very good. But remember that if You will ever want somebody else to understand it, then it can cause frustration. I think that in situations like this it is best to stick to KISS principle (Keep It Simple and Stupid). My understanding is that the simple and most well-traveled approach for servo systems with Mesa hardware is to use pncconf. If you have a recommendation for a simpler or stupider solution I am certainly open to it. Personally I have found pncconf to be invaluable and just to clarify, I have not modified the ini or main hal file beyond that generated by pncconf. So if you have a problem with the aliasing, etc. that is an issue with that tool and certainly not of my implementation. If I would do what you suggest and put my changes directly in the hal file, then every change I make in pncconf would require me to manually re-merge my custom changes. AFAIK, the recommended approach for custom hal via pncconf is custom.hal (and custom_postgui.hal), and that is where I have my custom stuff. If the sourcing obfuscates things I apologize, but I don't know a better way to keep configurations relatively modular and still use pncconf. For what it is worth, I believe in the future pncconf is going to use the source command as well for this purpose. AFAIK having or not having a base thread - yes, it can make a difference in the realtime performance of Your PC. If I recall correctly, You had set base-thread to 1 ns. I am 100% sure that You are getting realtime error messages. True with that configuration I have under revision control. I typically run at 5 ns and had set it to 1 as a diagnostic measure to see if I could increase the sampling rate. Again, though, if I can run a base thread with reasonable performance on all other fronts, why not do that? I am talking about frequency-based analog inputs for things like temperatures and voltage levels where if I miss an encoder count it is certainly not the end of the world. That is what I told since the very beginning - use encoder module in 5i23... You have loaded 4 pwmgens and 4 encoders and are using only 3 of them. So You a spare encoder module to attach the frequency input to. I have tried to explain several times why I want a software-based encoder: 1) Eventually I will want more analog inputs. 2) Without a custom firmware I cannot align the encoder with optically isolated I/O. Additionally I'd like to try and build a solution that I can document for anyone to use regardless of specialized hardware. BTW why do You have 4 stepgens loaded, if You use only one? That also is a little waste of resources :) If You would load 1 stepgen, then those pins, currently occupied by 3 unused stepgen instances would be available as gpio pins. This would help me conserve a resource that is not at all scarce to me. I have 4 stepgens configured because if I change the number of stepgens pncconf wants me to reconfigure everything. I expect I will want to add a stepper or two in various future machine configurations and so have reserved them in that configuration. The non-isolated I/O alongside the one stepgen in use goes unused otherwise anyway. As You can see, there are bitfiles, that offer 8 encoder modules along with pwmgens and stepgens. Yes of course. But as far as I can tell there is no stock bitfile that allows me to run my three main servos and encoders, isolated I/O for limit, etstop, etc. along with isolated I/O for a number of other encoders, a non-isolated stepgen and still make use of the Mesa servo controller card and isolated I/O daughterboard with their specific set of input and output pins. Conversely, if I can get software encoders to work, I can stack software-based encoders using one isolated input each wherever they fit, basically giving me as many as I could ever need. Regards, Scott -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
OK, now I think I'm starting to wrap my head around why it is not working. Even with my software encoder sampling on the base-thread, with this line: addf hm2_5i23.0.read servo-thread updated I/O values were only being read from the 5i23 on the servo-thread. A bit counter intuitive to me, but clear in hindsight. I presume I could remedy this by running the hm2_5i23.0.read function on the base-thread. Peter: I know you have advised against this approach as inefficient use of the PC's CPU, but presuming it is workable performance-wise, is there any functional reason I should not do this? Would I also want to do it for hm2_5i23.0.write or is there no need? Thanks much, Scott On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com wrote: On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Scott Hasse wrote: Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:43:56 -0500 From: Scott Hasse scott.ha...@gmail.com Reply-To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input But this is really really wasteful Presuming my PC can handle a reasonable base-thread rate, is it really wasteful of a scarce resource? Depending on the thread rate, you may use 20% or more of your PCs horsepower doing I/O. Also the hardware encoder counter will do a better job of frequency counting, even high res counting of low frequencies (it uses a 1MHz timestamp for inverse time frequency calculation) than the software encoder counter (which uses the jittery basethread for timestamping). It seems if I want to use a real encoder counter given my configuration I'll need a custom 5i23 firmware? Possible but since you only need one more encoder counter, theres possibly a bitfile that will do (depending on what other functions you have) Thanks! Scott On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 10:01 AM, Peter C. Wallace p...@mesanet.com wrote: On Sat, 17 Mar 2012, Scott Hasse wrote: snip-- It acts like it is sampling the encoder at the servo-thread frequency, despite the update-counters function being bound to the base-thread. When I view the configuration from axis, the base-thread does show the encoder.update-counters function bound to it. You probably are sampling at the servo thread, to avoid this you would have to do the the hm2_read at the base thread. But this is really really wasteful, much better to use a real encoder counter (and dump the base thread sucking computer resources altogether) Peter Wallace -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your ()_() signature to help him gain world domination. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
Scott My understanding is that the simple and most well-traveled approach for servo systems with Mesa hardware is to use pncconf. If you have a recommendation for a simpler or stupider solution I am certainly open to it. Personally I have found pncconf to be invaluable and just to clarify, I have not modified the ini or main hal file beyond that generated by pncconf. So if you have a problem with the aliasing, etc. that is an issue with that tool and certainly not of my implementation. You are using an older version of PNCconf that uses aliasing. The soon to be released does not. Lots of people already use 2.5 and wouldn't know why aliasing is there (there was a technical barrier that some one since fixed) actually i bet most people don't know what aliasing does :) If I would do what you suggest and put my changes directly in the hal file, then every change I make in pncconf would require me to manually re-merge my custom changes. AFAIK, the recommended approach for custom hal via pncconf is custom.hal (and custom_postgui.hal), and that is where I have my custom stuff. If the sourcing obfuscates things I apologize, but I don't know a better way to keep configurations relatively modular and still use pncconf. For what it is worth, I believe in the future pncconf is going to use the source command as well for this purpose. Nothing wrong with what you are doing- again PNCconf sometimes does things a little different. The 'source' command is little known - In fact the newest PNCconf does use the source command. If one writes an hand written config or edits a sample they would never know the command exists. I think the biggest problem here Scott is the most experienced users / developers don't use PNCconf and few use the advanced features you are using. It is considerably easier to debug a problem if the config is similar to what they have usually seen. That being said If you so choose to do as you want - even if it's perceived as the hardway lets try to get to the real problem. I think in the next message you hit the solution. hm2_BoardType.BoardNum.read_gpio must be in the base thread. this allows the GPIO pins to be read on a faster thread This is not a common usage. See the man page on hostmot2 (very end) Chris M -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory
On Saturday, March 17, 2012 08:13:59 PM Ron Ginger did opine: On 3/17/2012 4:12 PM, emc-users-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: In fact, my GMC fired up an hour ago for the first time in several months, with a fresh engine in it, so hitting NAMES might not be out of the question if they hold one this summer. Cheers, Gene NAMES is April 21, 22 in Yak Arena, Wyandotte Michigan. There is limited space there, but they did give EMC a space last year. The CNC workshop is in June in Ann Arbor MI, and will of course be all CNC. ron ginger Thanks Ron. That is only about 5 weeks down the road, we'll have to see about that. What part of MI is Wyandotte in? 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) My web page: http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection unprotected. -- Robert Orben -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tool change question
Well, I made the changes to Les Newell's script you suggested, and it worked! Sort of :) Mind you, I'm running version 2.4.3. The first time I tried running a g-code program, nothing happened. I found I had to stop the program, then start it again. Then it was off and running. This seems to happen every time after loading a g-code program. Also, you mentioned you had to press Alt-TAB to change focus. I found all I had to do, after the tool change dialog box appeared, was to click anywhere in the EMC window, and it picked up focus. Then I could jog, touch off, etc. And I didn't have to press F2 afterwards. So bottom line is, once you learn the quirks of this tool change script, it does the job. It's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone. Tony - Original Message - From: Schooner schoone...@tiscali.co.uk To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 9:06 AM Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Tool change question Hi Have now had a play with this and found how to get it working with 2.5 Comment out the lines #iniFile = emc.ini(os.environ['INI_FILE_NAME']) #emc.nmlfile = s.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.environ['INI_FILE_NAME']), #iniFile.find(EMC, NML_FILE)) Change the lines emcStat = emc.stat(); emcCmd = emc.command() to emcStat = emc.stat();emcCmd = emc.command() Change the lines at about 52-54 with the backslashes in strange places so that the '\' are end of line continuation markers, as per bash The module then loads and when toolchange commanded, the dialog appears and you can jog all axes. However I found that I had to cycle to and from AXIS using Alt/Tab to get focus for mouse clicks to work and had to press F2 (machine on/off) to get out of this state. Not sure how it was intended to work, but it sort of does regards -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tool change question
Jeff, For some reason, I was unable to get Les Newell's tool change script to run UNLESS I named it the default name - hal_manualtoolchange. Per your suggestion, I tried naming Les's script to hal_manualtoolchange_new, and then changing the reference to it in the .ini file. But when I started EMC2, no window appeared. So I waited a minute, and tried starting EMC2 again. This time I got a dialog box saying it was already running. There is a reference to the name in the script itself: h = hal.component(hal_manualtoolchange) Do I need to change the name here too? Also, in the .ini file, the name appears in four places: loadusr -W hal_manualtoolchange net tool-change iocontrol.0.tool-change = hal_manualtoolchange.change net tool-changed iocontrol.0.tool-changed = hal_manualtoolchange.changed net tool-number iocontrol.0.tool-prep-number = hal_manualtoolchange.number net tool-prepare-loopback iocontrol.0.tool-prepare = iocontrol.0.tool-prepared Should I change the name in all four places? Thanks, Tony - Original Message - From: Jeff Epler jep...@unpythonic.net To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Tool change question I assume that you are talking about the script linked at http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ManualToolChangeMacro It looks like this version of the tool change script is a bit out of date with respect to LinuxCNC. LinuxCNC removed the need to specify [EMC]NML_FILE in the inifile in version 2.4, and this same setting was removed from most sample configurations and configurations generated by stepconf. However, this toolchange script is still referring to it and doesn't work if it's not specified. Until the author of the version on the wiki can correct the script, it may work simply to remove the two lines emc.nmlfile = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.environ['INI_FILE_NAME']), iniFile.find(EMC, NML_FILE)) You should also be aware that since you gave this file the same name as a file installed by linuxcnc, an upgrade will overwrite the file. You should give it a different name, and then refer to that name in your hal file instead. This will save you heartache later. Jeff -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Voltage to frequency for analog input
Stopped down to the shop tonight to try: addf hm2_5i23.0.read_gpio base-thread Debug file information: HAL: ERROR: function 'hm2_5i23.0.read_gpio' needs FP analog-in.hal:4: addf failed To me this implies it is not a real time capable function? I tried creating a separate thread, but I get: insmod: error inserting '/usr/realtime-2.6.32-122-rtai/modules/emc2/threads.ko': -1 Operation not permitted Presumably with motmod initializing and loading threads I cannot add others afterward. This leaves me in kind of a bind. Does anyone have any ideas about adding the read_gpio function to the base thread or alternately loading a thread that it could bind to? Thanks, Scott -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Marketing LinuxCNC, was Re: Trajectory
gene heskett wrote: Thanks Ron. That is only about 5 weeks down the road, we'll have to see about that. What part of MI is Wyandotte in? (Very) Slightly West of Detroit. Jon -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
