EasyCAT Arduino shield

For me, I don't need them. But if you want, I can add analog read and write.
But it would a little more difficult to configure, since every analog value has to have its own PDO.

zmrdko wrote:

For me, I don't need them. But if you want, I can add analog read and write.
But it would a little more difficult to configure, since every analog value has to have its own PDO.
 

Well it was a pretty good idea to port this to EtherCAT, I'm sure plenty of people who might use it would want to use analog inputs.

ArduinoConnector has some inherent issues with the way it handles the serial data on the Python side. I made custom PCBs for my control panel and once I got it going I noticed massive lag when spinning an MPG relatively fast, even just turning on an output had some noticeable lag. And this is with a 600mhz Teensy as the controller. The lag only exists on the LinuxCNC side reading the HAL pins, there's no lag on the serial output itself to a terminal.

It's alot easier for me to take a different route with hardware than it is to deal with software issues. I just started working on a new version of my PCB using an STM32 and a LAN9252 for EtherCAT. An Arduino + shield doesn't really work out for what I'm trying to do. I haven't reallly dove into configuring EtherCAT for LinuxCNC yet, but I'll get there.

pippin88 wrote:

I'm interested in how you go with the Mikroe EtherCat Click and RIO
 

I have no idea how to do this yet, I'm not familiar with EtherCat,
but I find it interesting.

 

blazini36 wrote:

zmrdko wrote:

For me, I don't need them. But if you want, I can add analog read and write.
But it would a little more difficult to configure, since every analog value has to have its own PDO.
 
Well it was a pretty good idea to port this to EtherCAT, I'm sure plenty of people who might use it would want to use analog inputs.

ArduinoConnector has some inherent issues with the way it handles the serial data on the Python side. I made custom PCBs for my control panel and once I got it going I noticed massive lag when spinning an MPG relatively fast, even just turning on an output had some noticeable lag. And this is with a 600mhz Teensy as the controller. The lag only exists on the LinuxCNC side reading the HAL pins, there's no lag on the serial output itself to a terminal.

It's alot easier for me to take a different route with hardware than it is to deal with software issues. I just started working on a new version of my PCB using an STM32 and a LAN9252 for EtherCAT. An Arduino + shield doesn't really work out for what I'm trying to do. I haven't reallly dove into configuring EtherCAT for LinuxCNC yet, but I'll get there.
 

well I don't know if its really porting. The communication itself is very different. I copied the style of configuring pins and debouncing signal.

I had to re-read this from the beginning.
Some analog inputs would be very cool.
Also, an interrupt driven MPG counter input would be very useful.
Analogs and MPG's start becoming expensive with ethercat.
 

I have been working on an EtherCAT device for some time. Don't want to derail this thread from the original topic, but start here if you are interested github.com/MetalMusings/MyOwnEtherCATDevice

rodw wrote:

I had to re-read this from the beginning.
Some analog inputs would be very cool.
Also, an interrupt driven MPG counter input would be very useful.
Analogs and MPG's start becoming expensive with ethercat.

 

I don't actually know what is interrupt driven MPG, but I have mpg working. The counting happens in arduino using Encoder arduino library and I am using interrupt pins 2,3 and it works nice.

I can add analog in and out, but it can not be configured as easily as digital pins.

zmrdko post=297267 userid=34234

I don't actually know what is interrupt driven MPG, but I have mpg working. The counting happens in arduino using Encoder arduino library and I am using interrupt pins 2,3 and it works nice.

I can add analog in and out, but it can not be configured as easily as digital pins.

"Interrupt driven" MPG is probably exactly what you have as long as you're using Interrupt capable pins on the Arduino, pretty sure the Arduino encoder library sorts that out. Otherwise you would use GPIO pins with that library that don't have interrupts and aren't as good at catching the MPG pulses. The other type would be hardware timer based encoders, which I'm pretty sure that library wouldn't handle as that's a microcontroller peripheral, but it's probably overkill for an MPG 

blazini36 wrote:

zmrdko post=297267 userid=34234

"Interrupt driven" MPG is probably exactly what you have as long as you're using Interrupt capable pins on the Arduino, pretty sure the Arduino encoder library sorts that out. 

X 2. When a signal is sensed on the interrupt enabled pins, an Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) is called. This allows quite high peformance on Arduino Hardware without resorting to loops.

since i don't want to open a new thread, i'll just ask here:

I have now received my Ethercat Click and I am wondering
if it is possible to control several motors with one EtherCat client ?