PathPilot on Novakon

[geidnert]

Hi, this is really awesome, i am sure many people would like to run PathPilot if it was possible on their machines. Why do you need to buy a mesa card? did you talk about that and i missed it? wouldn't it be possible to modify the files so they work for any electronics or whats the deal with that?

[brianbonedoc]

If u change the hal file u prob can get away with just the parallel port but it will perform better with the mess card

[hoecken]

Will it work with Mesa 7i92, the Ethernet card ?

[PCW_MESA]

Not directly, the reason is that AFAIK currently Pathpilot runs under a fairly old Ubuntu version (10.04?)
and uses a RTAI real time kernel. Hm2_eth (the driver for Mesas real time Ethernet interface cards including the 7I92 )
requires a different kernel (Preempt-RT) and a different LinuxCNC branch ( the "uspace" branch)
so you would at the minimum need to compile Pathpilot from source to get it working with the 7I92

This is not to say its not possible, but it would very likely lead down a fairly long rabbit hole...

On the other hand the 7I92 works fine with LinuxCNC 2.7 :-)

[geidnert]

Thanks for the answer brianbonedoc, i was hopinf i could use my ethernet smoothstepper from warp9 that i already bought, would that also be possible with the HAL changes your talking about?

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Thanks for the answer brianbonedoc, i was hopinf i could use my ethernet smoothstepper from warp9 that i already bought, would that also be possible with the HAL changes your talking about?

Not a chance in....

Regards,
Ray L.

[geidnert]

Oh darn, is that so!?... guess i have to order a Mesa card then after all... :/

[brianbonedoc]

What Ray said is exactly right.

The short answer is that Mach/ESS are buffered - in other words the ESS stores some moves in it to make up for windows trying to take control of the hardware and causing glitches.
The linuxcnc/PathPilot is a realtime controller - as in the parallel port is under realtime control - eg no buffered moves.

What you will see is that PathPilot is crazy responsive. The instant you command it to do anything it responds. I noticed this especially in probing. In mach I was always seeing the probe over travel after it triggered. In path pilot the LED barely flickers before the machine reverses. It's very satisfying to see that kind of control.

[geidnert]

ok, that sounds great, so i guess for Windows based controller programs like Mach 3 the ESS is a good choice, but for linux there is no need for buffering then? just ordered 2 Mesa boards, hope they will be here soon, it said they had 130 in stock so hopefully i do not have to wait to long.

[kvom]

What are the chances that Novakon could ship machines with a PP control already installed with the Mesa card?

[LeeWay]

What are the chances that Novakon could ship machines with a PP control already installed with the Mesa card?

See post number 46.

[hoecken]

As far as I know the debian 2.7 on linuxcnc is RTAI, so a Preemt-RT version must exist somewhere but I haven't found it yet.

[samco]

http://linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/ge...empt_rt_kernel

sam

[hoecken]

Thanks samco.

[geidnert]

Hmm.. i dont get any answer from MESA about my order, anyone know whats up with them? Please dont say i put my money in a black hole! :/

[MBViklund]

Hmm.. i dont get any answer from MESA about my order, anyone know whats up with them? Please dont say i put my money in a black hole! :/

They are just busy. My board is arriving tomorrow.

[brianbonedoc]

It takes about 10-14 days to ship. They test every board from what I understand. Be patient.

[MBViklund]

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[MBViklund]

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[geidnert]

Ok, at least i got my copy of PathPilot yesterday, so now i have installed that and made the touch screen work, just have to wait for the cards now. I hope it was the correct one i ordered, right?

5I25 Superport FPGA based PCI Anything I/O card, 89$

i have this breakout board:

CNCdrive - motion controls