Converting CNC-STEP HighZ-1000T to LinuxCNC with Mesa

I've been running my High-Z with Mach3 and Mach4 using a Smoothstepper. I has worked kind of ok, but when I added a physical control panel and Pokeys57 things went south. After many support emails in three directions (PoKeys, Smoothstepper, Mach4) I realized that Mach4 is not the right tool for the job.

I'm now starting my conversion to LinuxCNC. I have never used LinuxCNC, but I have read a lot and looked through most of the HAL tutorials I could find. So far I really like it. Can't wait to start working with HAL instead of Mach4's complicated setup.

I'll use this thread to document the journey. As of now I'm waiting for parts.
I have picked up a used HP 8300 SFF, which seems to fit the bill perfectly.

Awaiting delivery for:
- SSD disk for the HP
- Mesa 7I96 configured for 4 axis + spindle PWM (actually just 3 axis for now)
- Mesa 7i73 for the physical control panel

This is what I have to work with:
CNC machine: www.cnc-step.com/cnc-router-1000x600-s-1000t-ballscrew/
Motor controller: www.cnc-step.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...ns-Zero-3-35A_EN.pdf

I have made some changes to the original HighZ
- replaced the spindle with a 24krpm 1.5kW
- added a vacuum table and a vise as seen in the picture.

The 7i96 board has both + and - connections for step and dir. As a stepper-newbie I was quite confused by his, but I found the answer in the manual.

"Each differential pair consists of two complementary 5V outputs. The differential signals allows reliable signal transmission in noisy environments and can directly interface with RS-422 line receivers. Step motor drives with single ended inputs connect to just one of the STEP and DIR signal outputs, that is either the STEP+/DIR+ or STEP-/DIR- signals, with the unused signals left unconnected at the 7I96."

Nice choice for the MESA controllers and LCNC

I'm a total noob and still managed to make a working plasma table, and lots of help from the comunity members

Welcome aboard the LInuxCNC train

Oh boy.. This might be a bumpy journey.
I'll reference my questions here to get a consolidated documentation.

hm2-7i76e-0-watchdog-timeout-ns-not-found
forum.linuxcnc.org/39-pncconf/39194-para...timeout-ns-not-found

Firmware updated..

Not quite as straightforward as I had imagined.
1. clone source code for mesaflash
2. apt-get some dev dependencies
3. make mesaflash
4. try to figure out how to use mesaflash
5. find the firmware (found it at jethornton's github)

At last:

Adapting the 7i96 to be D-SUB25 compatible, since my motor controls are in a separate enclosure with a D-SUB port. Kind of messy, I hope I get it all right.

The band cable was unreasonably tangly when I split it into individual cables. It got so ugly, so I switched to soldering instead. That way I could chose better colors and less tangly cables.

The orange cable is for the spindle PWM. I don't know where to connect it. Hoping for an answer for this.
forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3923...96-which-pin-for-pwm

Thanks Andy.
I've already purchased the 7i73, which will replace PoKeys.

So far I've only tested to get contact with the 7i96 and 7i73. This already seems much more stable than Smothstepper and PoKeys, so I have high hopes for this setup. I hope I don't have to take this statement back later =)

My bad experience might be largely due to Mach3/4. Both Smothstepper and PoKeys has really bad drivers for Mach environment. Each of them need a specific Mach4 build. Every now and then they lost contact. The PoKeys initialization at first start makes all pins go high, and it was a pita to handle this in Mach4. I gave up.

As for the timeout-ns, yes it's solved (see separate thread) . Somehow pncconf gave me a mix of 7i76 and 7i96 in the hal/ini files.