New ethercat / probe basic control for minimonster

no wired connection.
fixed now. this is my frustration with linux. it said you are missing this file, put it on a usb and continue. NOWHERE does it say no, don't do that at all, go get this .deb file of intel stuff instead.

They first make it deliberately difficult, then make the instructions deliberately obtuse assuming everyone already knows everything there is to know about linux.

And then they wonder why it never really makes more headway with the masses.

Well that was a waste of several hours for nothing.

finshed installing.. reboots..... no operating system installed.

*slams head on desk*

Now what? its the only disk in there.

Already done here.

The no OS found is a lenovo thing I forgot about. needs a bios flash. doing that now.

it wont update the bios cause it cant find the usb drive.

I'm going to eat a pizza and scream for a bit.

Haha.

Mmm, pizza fixes everything.

For the curious who might want to use lenovo tiny pcs:
- The pc needed a bios update to disable CSM mode. (legacy compatibility) and turn secure boot off.
- The bios needed to go on a bootable DOS stick, which was not super clear in the instructions and its been AGES since that was a thing haha so I just forgot.
- Once I got the bios on I still needed to reinstall linuxcnc cause I guess the boot record was still messed up.

After all that, its fine. Now to do the work I intended to do like 11 hours ago!

I need a nap.

11 hours you've done well!....

Hmm. Seems I cant really do much without having the drives here. But how deal with the rs485 for the spindle?

I see some people using usb adapters, but I have a real serial port as well, can that be used instead?

Yes, much better! Buy a serial port to RS485 adapter rather than a USB one.

Aussie link for example
core-electronics.com.au/rs-232-to-rs-485...hSu9V9RoC41AQAvD_BwE

Apparently the serial is through a special cable on these, not just the normal 2x12 board pins and those cables are are and expensive. sigh.

How much worse is the usb adapter? This is not a critical application really so if it lags some milliseconds I don't think it matters. The most critical thing is being able to respond to an alarm and stop the machine.