Ethercat HAL driver

The problem must be caused by not having edited the MASTER0_DEVICE. I'll try again today.

Now it works. I did a clean reinstall and now the lights on the EK1100 show that the bus is working and the LinuxCNC also opens and HAL configuration shows lcec.

What next? Should I get some IO module and connect it to the EK1100 and try whether I can actually do something useful over Ethercat?

About the drivers: Currently there seems to be not that many drivers for stepper and servo drives. Does the .c file of the actual driver contain the same information as the XML file for the generic driver?

Hello @CORBETT @JKAVS,

I don't know if all the devices can work with the linuxcnc-ethercat version but most work.
I think that sometimes they get confused about the generic issue, one thing is the network card, which can be generic or specific, it affects somewhat the performance especially if you have many devices but I think that really with the "generic" you have enough for linuxcnc,
the other issue is the generic driver for the device, which if it does not appear in the programmed list, you can use it without knowing how to program in C, quite useful for beginners, although it is a bit difficult to understand at first.

About the automatic installation of GROITUS, I don't know how it works.

the EK1100 device is only an interface, by itself it does nothing.

About the .xml file I have never used it, I always use the device manual and the commands included in , for complicated devices I use TWINCAT3

Greeting
Chimeno

@JKAVS

Ok good deal, glad you got it working... Yes I would get a EL1008 or something simple for input and you can get it figured out. That would be a easy terminal to get going... and you can use it in the future.... wouldn't be wasted.

Glad Chimeno got with you on the "generic" driver as he is verse in it.


Robert

Hello @sqmathlete,

I have gotten the EL5101 with a HONNER 58-11141-3000 encoder, in case you need any help.

Greeting
Chimeno

@JKAVS

I remember you wanting to do a super simple system back a few months ago. I had put this together before the holidays, but got busy and did not put it up... but since you were back on recently wanted to share this idea.

Ok you wanted to keep it super simple with EtherCAT and the big problem was finding ECAT VFD's that are affordable. This is still not super affordable, but gives another avenue. Andy (andypugh) posted in the past about Modbus using USB. Here is the link on the forum from Andy...

forum.linuxcnc.org/10-advanced-configura...-for-vfds-etc#181516


Here is my layout for using a AIO touchscreen computer with ECAT and Modbus.. would tie the limit switches back into the amps, but only show the basic setup.