Re: Linux vs. DOS

> From: "Matt Shaver" <mshaver@...>
> Well, there are of course two approaches to this. One of them involves a
> soldering iron... I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination,
> and I don't think this is in the .ini file. Give me a little while to dig
> through the EMC source directories here and I'll get back to you. I just
> cooked some burgers on the grill, and I'm going to eat a few and think
> about this. It's probably in some file called parport.h or stepper.c, or
> something like that. I can imagine it involves some changes that we can

do

> without involving the software folks such as just changing a few numbers.

Well, I am wrong. I searched and searched and the best I can come up with
is /usr/local/nist/emc/plat/rtlinux_09J/src/extsmmot.c which has some stuff
in it that looks like it relates to the parallel port. I also started to
learn about the grep command, but I don't know what to search for. To be
honest, you are the first person to control a stepper machine with the EMC.
Fred Proctor has a little test stand that consists of a stepper motor
driver box from Microkinetics with three little, probably size 15, stepper
motors stuck to the lid of the box with double sided tape. You are the only
one that has stepper motors coupled to a mill. All the other installations
are servo motors. Congratulations. I guess there are a lot of unanswered
questions that will come up like:

1. With no feedback (encoders) what do P, I, D, and a bunch of other
parameters in the .ini file mean?

2. We'll need to change the incremental jog menu items to match your step
size.

3. Since in the servo systems we use a parallel port for spindle and
coolant control along with estop, lube oil level sensing, etc. will we be
able to add another port to your machine for these functions? What kind of
mill is it? What controller, if any, were you using before?

I'll talk to you later, and in the mean time you might want to look around
and find your soldering iron.

Matt