Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] How to setup STG-II?

[Babar <riet91-at-yahoo.com>]

Hi All,

First thanks to Tim, Les and Ray for their reply. Les
and Tim strongly recommended me to join nist ‘ List I
did so and felt sorry for doing this so late. Now
following are my proceeding/questions

1)I downloaded stg.ini from Latest EMC handbook and 
rename it to generic.ini and copied it to
/usr/local/emc. with that when I clicked emc_generic
the GUI was showing 2 axes and dialog box showing
following mssg “maximum hardware limit on axis 0
exceeded” and when I tried to run any function, dialog
box showing E-stop mssg appeared. Then I made the
connections to STG according to Jon Elson‘s site (as
given bellow) but I could not get out of E-Stop.
All X,Y,Z +/-Limit switches inputs and Home inputs
coming out from STG Card’s connector P1 were grounded
on a breadboard.

2)there are four icons emc_generic, emc_mini, emc_run
and emc_sim which one should I click? What are their
purpose and functions? By the way except emc_mini
remaing three launches and shows GUI. But emc_mini is
not working.emc_sim is showing yellow digits while
emc_run and emc_generic are showing big red color
digits.

3)Jon could you please send me a more clear and
readable diagram of your LPT and STG connections and
similar request to Les for his configuration of limit
switches .

4)Les you talked about some trouble free emc.ini with
STG…….??

5)Paul….. I am anxiously waiting for your advice
against my this and previous post.

Thanks and regards
Babar

--- Ray Henry <rehenry-at-u...> wrote:
> 
> Babar
> 
> Tim gave an excellent response. I just want to add
> a couple other thoughts.
> 
> >    From: "Tim Goldstein" <timg-at-k...>
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > > 1)Please Suggest me how to configure EMC for STG
> II.
> >
> > This can be very complex. I would suggest you
> subscribe to the EMC list
> > that the NIST hosts. There are more people on that
> list that use EMC with
> > the STG cards. The majority of the users on this
> list tend to use the
> > stepper version through the parallel port.
> >
> > > 2)Is the BDI EMC intall by default for LPT port?
> if yes how to set it
> > > for  STG-II?
> >
> > I believe it is set to one of the stepper
> versions. To switch to the STG
> > version you have to go into the .ini file you are
> running from (there are a
> > number of them and editing the wrong one will lead
> to frustration as
> > nothing will seem to be having any effect). In the
> .ini under the [EMCMOT]
> > heading there is a section like the following:
> > ; Name of motion control program
> > EMCMOT =  steppermod.o
> > ; EMCMOT =  freqmod.o
> > ; EMCMOT =  stgmod.o
> > ; EMCMOT =  stg8mod.o
> > ; EMCMOT =  emcmotsim
> > ; EMCMOT =   smdromod.o
> >
> > The one without the comment in front (the semi
> colon) is the motion control
> > module that will be used. In this case it is the
> less resource intensive,
> > but more ragged pulse train stepper module. This
> is from an old build and
> > does not have the proper module for the STG2 card
> so I am not sure of the
> > exact name, but you should be able to recognize
> it. Just comment out the
> > wrong one and uncomment the one you want.
> >
> > > 3)Most of the posts I have read indicate that
> people are running EMC
> > > on Pentium I systems with less then 32 MB
> memory, I installed on my
> > > system which is 200 MMX with 64 MB RAM but this
> made my system very
> > > slow. Have anyone run EMC on Pentium III or is
> it not recommended? is
> > > there any recommended hardware list' website?
> >
> > The stepper modules need more processor power than
> the STG versions. Jon
> > Elson says he is running the STG version on a
> Pentium 100 and it is just
> > fine. A stepper version would be an absolute dog
> on that system. EMC works
> > fine on a Pentium II, III, IV, AMD K-6, and K-7
> along with most other
> > current PC processors.
> 
> The version that you are currently running may be a
> freqmod version and it 
> will stall out a slow machine. To see how it runs
> with a servo system, you 
> could start up the sim.
> 
> One other thing that can happen that will slow down
> your PC is if you start 
> and stop the emc a lot and some real time stuff gets
> left around from run to 
> run. You can fix these easily with a reboot or you
> can contact me off list 
> for a procedure that will drag them out of the
> kernel.
> 
> > > 4) what will happen if BDI EMC install
> confilicts with any system's
> > > hardware will it stop installation or will  it
> install successfully
> > > and later on during operation it may cause
> trouble?
> >
> > If Linux does not like your hardware you will know
> right away.
> 
> It sounds like you have a BDI running. If so, Linux
> likes your machine or at 
> least is not violently opposed to the essential
> parts of it. The bdi uses 
> Red Hat's install routines. These are really very
> good at recognizing the 
> essential parts of your system and configuring the
> Linux kernel and modules 
> to run well with them.
> 
> Now to the question of how to set up the STG to run.
> I heard from Paul while 
> he was working with Les that there are a few
> problems yet with the newest STG 
> driver newstgmod.o. I'm sure that he will find your
> post when he gets back 
> to Norwich and will fill you in on what those
> problems are and how to work 
> around them.
> 
> HTH
> 
> Ray


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