gmane.linux.distributions.emc.user

Re: Surface Finsishing

You can get special belts for a sander that polish aluminum... the finish depends on the 
grade... they look like 3-m polishing pads but on a belt...

John

On 2 Dec 2008 at 22:51, admin@... wrote:

> What do you guys use as the quickest and best cost effective and
> time-effective way to finish flat surfaces before the parts are
> Anodized?
> The parts are 8"x6"x3" Al boxes made from square tube with a few
> slots
> and holes CNC'd in so the surfaces are still the raw surfaces.
> I can CNC the boxes with a flat-face-mill , but wonder if there
> isnt
> something else you know of that is maybe a bit faster as I need to
> clamp
> and turn each side for the mill if I want to do it that way.
> 
> 
>  
> 
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admin-W4ay7r7vdIs@public.gmane.org | 3 Dec 13:51

Re: Surface Finsishing

This would be nice if the belts could be for aluminum but I could not
find any.
"http://www.thefind.com/hardware/browse-jet-aluminum-sander"

John Thornton wrote:
> You can get special belts for a sander that polish aluminum... the finish depends on the 
> grade... they look like 3-m polishing pads but on a belt...
>
> John
>
> On 2 Dec 2008 at 22:51, admin@... wrote:
>
>   
>> What do you guys use as the quickest and best cost effective and
>> time-effective way to finish flat surfaces before the parts are
>> Anodized?
>> The parts are 8"x6"x3" Al boxes made from square tube with a few
>> slots
>> and holes CNC'd in so the surfaces are still the raw surfaces.
>> I can CNC the boxes with a flat-face-mill , but wonder if there
>> isnt
>> something else you know of that is maybe a bit faster as I need to
>> clamp
>> and turn each side for the mill if I want to do it that way.
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -----

(Continue reading)

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Wayne Parks | 3 Dec 17:02

Re: Surface Finsishing

These sites deal with the finishing and polishing of Aluminum
http://www.car-accessories-magazine.com/aluminum-polishing.html
http://www.irinfo.com/polish/html/polish.html
A Scotch-Brite™ Cut and Polish Flap Brush in a hand held drill would work.
I could also see using a small round abrasive pad with a foam backer in 
the spindle of your mill
and run a small G code program that moves the work piece approximately 
3/4 the diameter of
the pad and then lowering the head to just contact the work surface and 
repeat this the full length
of the part resulting in the traditional circle polishing affect common 
on aluminum.
Wayne

>> You can get special belts for a sander that polish aluminum... the finish depends on the 
>> grade... they look like 3-m polishing pads but on a belt...
>>
>> John
>>
>> On 2 Dec 2008 at 22:51, admin@... wrote:
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> What do you guys use as the quickest and best cost effective and
>>> time-effective way to finish flat surfaces before the parts are
>>> Anodized?
>>> The parts are 8"x6"x3" Al boxes made from square tube with a few
>>> slots
>>> and holes CNC'd in so the surfaces are still the raw surfaces.
>>> I can CNC the boxes with a flat-face-mill , but wonder if there

(Continue reading)

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John Thornton | 4 Dec 00:14

Re: Surface Finsishing

I think he uses belts like this 47505A444 from mcmaster carr, a simple phone call would 
confirm the usage with them.

and here is the Aluminum Polishing 101 pdf

http://www.home-machine-shop.com/Down-Load/Polishing_Aluminum.pdf

John

On 3 Dec 2008 at 7:51, admin@... wrote:

> This would be nice if the belts could be for aluminum but I could
> not
> find any.
> "http://www.thefind.com/hardware/browse-jet-aluminum-sander"
> 
> 
> 
> John Thornton wrote:
> > You can get special belts for a sander that polish aluminum... the
> finish depends on the 
> > grade... they look like 3-m polishing pads but on a belt...
> >
> > John
> >
> > On 2 Dec 2008 at 22:51, admin@... wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> What do you guys use as the quickest and best cost effective
> and

(Continue reading)

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admin-W4ay7r7vdIs@public.gmane.org | 5 Dec 01:10

Re: Surface Finsishing

Thanks to Dave, John & Wayne  for the responses. It was helpful.
A good option would be to fit a sander on the CNC machine. That will
considerably speed things up.
I will also see if a simple bead-blasting wont do the job.

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Eric H. Johnson | 5 Dec 01:49

Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Sebastian, et al,

I am getting a strange error using the hostmot2 driver and the 7i43 board.
The error is "hm2/hm2_7i43.0: TRAM write error! (addr=0x1000, size=8,
iter=68373). The error occurs when running a g-code program but not while
jogging, at least initially.

If I bring the system up from a fresh boot, I can jog. But once I run a
g-code program and get the error, I will then get a following error if I try
to jog an axis. Additionally, if I shut down the program and restart,
immediately after coming up again I get an error "hm2_7i43:/DONE is not low
after CPLD reset!

Except for remapping some of the GPIO (which is currently mostly disabled)
and of course the bit file specified, the configuration is identical to my
working configuration on the m5i20 controller. I get the same error and
symptoms for both SVST4_4B.BIT and SVST4_6B.BIT.

I gather it has something to do with the communications over the parallel
port, but not sure what if any parameters affect that. 

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Eric

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Peter C. Wallace | 5 Dec 04:09

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:49:12 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: [Emc-users]  Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Sebastian, et al,
>
> I am getting a strange error using the hostmot2 driver and the 7i43 board.
> The error is "hm2/hm2_7i43.0: TRAM write error! (addr=0x1000, size=8,
> iter=68373). The error occurs when running a g-code program but not while
> jogging, at least initially.

Sebastian: what causes a TRAM write error?

Eric:

What EPP mode are you using and what type and length of cable do you 
have between the 7I43 and Parallel port?

What type of paralle port do you have (motherboard/PCI add-in)

Is the iteration count always the same?

I dont know if it would be caught by software checking but ISTR the 7I43 
cannot use a base thread (EPP operations need to be atomic) so a 7I43 HAL 
should only normally only use a Servo thread

(Continue reading)

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Eric H. Johnson | 5 Dec 04:56

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter,

>> What EPP mode are you using and what type and length of cable do you have
between the 7I43 and Parallel port? <<

The available parallel port modes in the BIOS are Output only,
Bi-directional, EPP and ECP. It is set to EPP, but I do not see a further
selection for mode of EPP. I think we determined previously that it was
version 1.9. 

The cable was fairly hard to find, I got it here:
http://www.sealevel.com/product_detail.asp?product_id=732&26%2DPin%5FIDC%5Ft
o%5FDB25%5FCable%5F

It is 8" long and I previously rang it out.

>> What type of paralle port do you have (motherboard/PCI add-in) <<

The parallel port is straight from the mother board. This is the motherboard
I am using:
http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-D945GCLF2-Mini-ITX-Motherboard?sc=8&category=1
00

>> Is the iteration count always the same? <<

No. Running it again I got an iteration count of 30865.

>> I dont know if it would be caught by software checking but ISTR the 7I43
cannot use a base thread (EPP operations need to be atomic) so a 7I43 HAL
should only normally only use a Servo thread <<

(Continue reading)

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Peter C. Wallace | 5 Dec 05:18

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 22:56:04 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter,
>
>>> What EPP mode are you using and what type and length of cable do you have
> between the 7I43 and Parallel port? <<
>
> The available parallel port modes in the BIOS are Output only,
> Bi-directional, EPP and ECP. It is set to EPP, but I do not see a further
> selection for mode of EPP. I think we determined previously that it was
> version 1.9.

Newer bitfiles will only work with 1.9 so that seems correct

>
> The cable was fairly hard to find, I got it here:
> http://www.sealevel.com/product_detail.asp?product_id=732&26%2DPin%5FIDC%5Ft
> o%5FDB25%5FCable%5F
>
> It is 8" long and I previously rang it out.
>
>>> What type of paralle port do you have (motherboard/PCI add-in) <<
>

(Continue reading)

headers

Sebastian Kuzminsky | 5 Dec 07:03

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:
> 
>> I am using the servo-thread for read and write. I also tried slowing down
>> the servo thread, although I could try slowing it down more. I was using 1ms
>> (1000000).
> 
> 1 ms should be fine (I think 100Usec is the approximate read+write time)

These figures are correct.  hm2_7i43.read() and hm2_7i43.write() 
together take about 100 us, so any servo period above about 200 us 
should work well with the 7i43.  1 ms is a great number to use.

--

-- 
Sebastian Kuzminsky
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
     -- Ken Thompson

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Sebastian Kuzminsky | 5 Dec 06:59

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:
>>
>> I am getting a strange error using the hostmot2 driver and the 7i43 board.
>> The error is "hm2/hm2_7i43.0: TRAM write error! (addr=0x1000, size=8,
>> iter=68373). The error occurs when running a g-code program but not while
>> jogging, at least initially.
> 
> Sebastian: what causes a TRAM write error?

First I want to clarify that the hostmot2 driver does not actually use 
the Translation RAM yet.  The error is from the placeholder code that 
some day *will* write to the TRAM.  Currently the driver keeps track of 
how it would *like* the TRAM set up, but it does all the I/O "by hand", 
meaning with a separate EPP Address-Write cycle (actually two) for each 
contiguous register region.

The error Eric is seeing is emitted when the hm2_7i43 driver detects an 
EPP timeout after a "wannabe-TRAM" write.  It writes the 16-bit address 
(0x1000 in the case above), writes 8 bytes of data, then checks the EPP 
Status register and finds bit 0 is set.

Eric reports not being able to jog after the error happens.  This is at 
least partially because the hostmot2 driver deliberately stops talking 
to the board after an EPP timeout.  It sets the hm2_7i43.io-error HAL 
pin to True, and while this pin is True the driver refuses to do any I/O 
with the board.  The user can set the pin back to False to force the 
driver to start talking to the board again.

Note that the io-error condition will almost certainly trigger a

(Continue reading)

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Peter C. Wallace | 5 Dec 16:39

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:49:12 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: [Emc-users]  Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Sebastian, et al,
>
> I am getting a strange error using the hostmot2 driver and the 7i43 board.
> The error is "hm2/hm2_7i43.0: TRAM write error! (addr=0x1000, size=8,
> iter=68373). The error occurs when running a g-code program but not while
> jogging, at least initially.
>
> If I bring the system up from a fresh boot, I can jog. But once I run a
> g-code program and get the error, I will then get a following error if I try
> to jog an axis. Additionally, if I shut down the program and restart,
> immediately after coming up again I get an error "hm2_7i43:/DONE is not low
> after CPLD reset!
>
> Except for remapping some of the GPIO (which is currently mostly disabled)
> and of course the bit file specified, the configuration is identical to my
> working configuration on the m5i20 controller. I get the same error and
> symptoms for both SVST4_4B.BIT and SVST4_6B.BIT.
>
> I gather it has something to do with the communications over the parallel
> port, but not sure what if any parameters affect that.
>

(Continue reading)

headers

Eric H. Johnson | 5 Dec 20:50

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board


Peter,

I found something interesting while checking to get your answers. Presiously
I was only jogging X and Y, and did not get any errors. This time I tried  Z
as well. When I jog the Z axis I get the TRAM write error. That would
explain why I get the error when running a G-Code program, but not when
jogging. The test program I was using was 3D_Chips, which of course uses the
Z axis.

Here are the answers to your questions.

LED states

            PWR      DONE  INIT
Start-up    Yellow   Red   Red
EMC Start   Yellow   Off   Off
After Error Yellow   Off   Off
Stop EMC    Yellow   Off   Off

Basically the LED states never change once EMC is run for the first time.

As for cycling power, I have done both a warm reboot and cold reboot. No
difference.

I will check to see if there is anything different in the configuration of Z
relative to X and Y.

Regards,
Eric

(Continue reading)

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Peter C. Wallace | 5 Dec 21:17

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 14:50:35 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
>
> Peter,
>
> I found something interesting while checking to get your answers. Presiously
> I was only jogging X and Y, and did not get any errors. This time I tried  Z
> as well. When I jog the Z axis I get the TRAM write error. That would
> explain why I get the error when running a G-Code program, but not when
> jogging. The test program I was using was 3D_Chips, which of course uses the
> Z axis.
>
> Here are the answers to your questions.
>
> LED states
>
>            PWR      DONE  INIT
> Start-up    Yellow   Red   Red
> EMC Start   Yellow   Off   Off
> After Error Yellow   Off   Off
> Stop EMC    Yellow   Off   Off
>
> Basically the LED states never change once EMC is run for the first time.

(Continue reading)

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Eric H. Johnson | 5 Dec 21:26

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter,

At this point I am just working out the configuration. I am not connected to
anything as far as hardware. There is nothing connected to the P3 and P4
connectors.

Regards,
Eric

Well thats fairly weird. If there is no configuration difference, Is it
possible that there is a electrical noise issue with the Z axis?

If this is a stepper machine, can you try without the Z axis powered (to see
if its possibly a noise problem)

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Peter C. Wallace | 5 Dec 21:35

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 15:26:58 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter,
>
> At this point I am just working out the configuration. I am not connected to
> anything as far as hardware. There is nothing connected to the P3 and P4
> connectors.
>
> Regards,
> Eric

Thats even more bizzare

I bought a D945GCLF2 to test with (at least the hardware) I'll try a EPP 
loopback test next week and see if anything strange shows up...

Peter Wallace
Mesa Electronics

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Peter C. Wallace | 9 Dec 03:20

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board


Well I got one of those MiniITX D945GCLF2 Motherboards and did some testing
The SMSC super I/O chip has very fast edges, and triggers a problem I'd 
noticed with one of my plug-in PCI parallel port cards.

(1 foot flat cable)

With my EPP loopback test and the current firmware I got verify errors about 
every 200K EPP operations 

With new firmware that has improved EPP timing I got the error rate down to 
about 1 error every 100 million EPP operations

With Rev C hardware and new firmware the test has gotten to ~500 million 
operations without error, (still running) I'll leave it on over night to make 
sure I've really got it licked.

I will probably have to send you a REV C 7I43 (three 220 PF capacitors added 
to EPP ASTROBE/DSTROBE/READ at 26 pin Header to prevent overshoot)

Peter Wallace
Mesa Electronics

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Eric H. Johnson | 9 Dec 14:52

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter,

That is good news, at least as far as finding a problem and having a
probable solution. What do I need to do from here? Please feel free to
contact me off list.

BTW, regarding the EMC 2.3.7 + 7i43... thread, I also have a box with a VIA
mini-ITX motherboard
(http://www.mini-box.com/Hybrid-C7-1-5G?sc=8&category=99) which I am
currently using with an m5i20 board. I can easily reconfigure for the 7i43.
Let me know if that is different from what you have used to test and if you
would like me to test anything with it.

Regards,
Eric

Well I got one of those MiniITX D945GCLF2 Motherboards and did some testing
The SMSC super I/O chip has very fast edges, and triggers a problem I'd
noticed with one of my plug-in PCI parallel port cards.

(1 foot flat cable)

With my EPP loopback test and the current firmware I got verify errors about
every 200K EPP operations 

With new firmware that has improved EPP timing I got the error rate down to 
about 1 error every 100 million EPP operations

With Rev C hardware and new firmware the test has gotten to ~500 million 
operations without error, (still running) I'll leave it on over night to

(Continue reading)

headers

Peter C. Wallace | 9 Dec 21:39

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:

> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 08:52:10 -0500
> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter,
>
> That is good news, at least as far as finding a problem and having a
> probable solution. What do I need to do from here? Please feel free to
> contact me off list.

OK overnight with 1 foot cable, no errors = 24 billion EPP operations error 
free. I think that one is licked. Trying 12 foot flat cable now, 360 
million EPP ops with no errors so far...

I will send out new bitfiles and send replacement (patched) 7I43s.

>
> BTW, regarding the EMC 2.3.7 + 7i43... thread, I also have a box with a VIA 
> mini-ITX motherboard 
> (http://www.mini-box.com/Hybrid-C7-1-5G?sc=8&category=99) which I am 
> currently using with an m5i20 board. I can easily reconfigure for the 7i43. 
> Let me know if that is different from what you have used to test and if you 
> would like me to test anything with it.

Yes, that has a different Super I/O chip, (F17805) so testing would be

(Continue reading)

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Jon Elson | 10 Dec 05:28

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, Eric H. Johnson wrote:
>
>   
>> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 08:52:10 -0500
>> From: Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@...>
>> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>>     <emc-users@...>
>> To: "'Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)'" <emc-users@...>
>> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
>>
>> Peter,
>>
>> That is good news, at least as far as finding a problem and having a
>> probable solution. What do I need to do from here? Please feel free to
>> contact me off list.
>>     
>
>
> OK overnight with 1 foot cable, no errors = 24 billion EPP operations error 
> free. I think that one is licked. Trying 12 foot flat cable now, 360 
> million EPP ops with no errors so far...
>
> I will send out new bitfiles and send replacement (patched) 7I43s.
>
>   
>> BTW, regarding the EMC 2.3.7 + 7i43... thread, I also have a box with a VIA 
>> mini-ITX motherboard 
>> (http://www.mini-box.com/Hybrid-C7-1-5G?sc=8&category=99) which I am 
>> currently using with an m5i20 board. I can easily reconfigure for the 7i43.

(Continue reading)

headers

Peter C. Wallace | 10 Dec 06:09

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, Jon Elson wrote:

> Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:28:20 -0600
> From: Jon Elson <elson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
>>
>> NetMos cards that do _not_ work. They dont sample read data on the correct
>> strobe edge so would be almost impossible to make work with HostMot2 (that has
>> read-side effects). They may be fine for bit I/O but they suck for EPP. They
>> also have open drain control output signals, yick yack yuck!
>>
> Oh, good to know you are having the same problem with them.  I couldn't
> even figure out the port address and get it to wiggle the output pins,
> but thought it might have been a bad unit.
>
> Jon

I wasted 2 days fscking around with those cards (NetMos = MOSChip 9805 based) 
I had no trouble getting them into EPP mode, they just dont work right in EPP 
mode. I got write to work but they seem to sample the read data on the leading 
edge of the strobe, this is contrary to the EPP specs I've read and every 
other EPP capable parallel port I have tested. For some more advanced features 
of HostMot2 to work properly, reads must be qualified by a strobe as some read 
have side effects (reading FIFOs for example). There is no reliable way to 
make this work with the MOSChip parts. I hate to admit defeat as these are by 
far the most common PCI parallel port chips but I give up on MosChip cards.

(Continue reading)

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Jon Elson | 10 Dec 22:03

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
>
>
> I wasted 2 days fscking around with those cards (NetMos = MOSChip 9805 based) 
> I had no trouble getting them into EPP mode, they just dont work right in EPP 
> mode. I got write to work but they seem to sample the read data on the leading 
> edge of the strobe, this is contrary to the EPP specs I've read and every 
> other EPP capable parallel port I have tested. For some more advanced features 
> of HostMot2 to work properly, reads must be qualified by a strobe as some read 
> have side effects (reading FIFOs for example). There is no reliable way to 
> make this work with the MOSChip parts. I hate to admit defeat as these are by 
> far the most common PCI parallel port chips but I give up on MosChip cards.
>
>   
Obviously, the par port chip has to wait for a signal from the slave 
device to indicate the data is present before sampling it.
I had similar problems with some other PCI boards, and found that I was 
gettting crosstalk from strobes and data lines onto the WAIT signal, 
causing the read operation to end and sample too early.  I have been 
manually adding a bunch of termination resistors to my boards until I 
can respin the PCBs.  Never needed this with the motherboard par ports, 
but the timing, logic levels, etc. of the PCI boards are different.

I did find one motherboard that had a problem in the ISA interface 
chip.  I could watch the EPP signals and see the data lines changing 
while the strobe was active.  The only explanation I could come up with 
was that every couple hundred EPP cycles, the ISA interface would fail 
to put the CPU into a wait state, and when the CPU wrote again to the 
EPP data register, it would change the data being sent.  No way to fix 
that one either!

(Continue reading)

headers

Peter C. Wallace | 10 Dec 22:15

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Jon Elson wrote:

> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:03:57 -0600
> From: Jon Elson <elson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter C. Wallace wrote:
>>
>>
>> I wasted 2 days fscking around with those cards (NetMos = MOSChip 9805 based)
>> I had no trouble getting them into EPP mode, they just dont work right in EPP
>> mode. I got write to work but they seem to sample the read data on the leading
>> edge of the strobe, this is contrary to the EPP specs I've read and every
>> other EPP capable parallel port I have tested. For some more advanced features
>> of HostMot2 to work properly, reads must be qualified by a strobe as some read
>> have side effects (reading FIFOs for example). There is no reliable way to
>> make this work with the MOSChip parts. I hate to admit defeat as these are by
>> far the most common PCI parallel port chips but I give up on MosChip cards.
>>
>>
> Obviously, the par port chip has to wait for a signal from the slave
> device to indicate the data is present before sampling it.
> I had similar problems with some other PCI boards, and found that I was
> gettting crosstalk from strobes and data lines onto the WAIT signal,
> causing the read operation to end and sample too early.  I have been
> manually adding a bunch of termination resistors to my boards until I
> can respin the PCBs.  Never needed this with the motherboard par ports,

(Continue reading)

headers

Sebastian Kuzminsky | 10 Dec 22:34

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> With the 9805, I can see that the strobe ends in response to my wait signal, 
> but the data is sampled somewhere around the falling (leading) edge of the 
> strobe. I thought about an error caused by the port seeing /wait asserted too 
> early so even tried putting a fair sized cap at the parallel port end of 
> /wait, this slowed the handshake, but did not help reading tha data at the 
> right time. Only way I could thnk of making the NetMos cards read right is by 
> supplying read data when READ is high, but thats too ugly (bus conflicts etc) 
> to consider seriously.

I signed up for an account at MosChip.com, after that they let me see 
their docs.  Their FAQ for the 9805 says this:

MosChip 9805 FAQ:
> An additional problem exists with EPP Mode. We have identified a timing problem
> in the chip that affects reading data from the remote device in EPP Mode. We are
> able to write data to the device (printer etc.) just fine under all conditions. The
> problem only affects reading data back from the device (scanner etc.) in EPP Mode.
> The symptoms result in the same Byte of data being returned for every read request.
> This problem does not affect ECP Mode. For this reason we recommend PS/2 or
> ECP Modes for applications that require bi-directional data transfers.

So yeah, the manufacturer admits that their hardware is broken, not much 
anyone can do about that...  Unfortunately.

--

-- 
Sebastian Kuzminsky
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
     -- Ken Thompson

(Continue reading)

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Jeff Epler | 10 Dec 23:25

Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

In principle, you can do epp in software on a so-called bidirectional
port... the linux driver seems to do this.  I tried it once with the
pluto driver, but it didn't work.  I assume I got some detail wrong, and
at the time I didn't "need" such a feature for myself anyway.

but if it's a problem on enough parports, maybe we should look into it
again..

Jeff

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Jon Elson | 11 Dec 02:08

Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Jeff Epler wrote:
> In principle, you can do epp in software on a so-called bidirectional
> port... the linux driver seems to do this.  I tried it once with the
> pluto driver, but it didn't work.  I assume I got some detail wrong, and
> at the time I didn't "need" such a feature for myself anyway.
>
> but if it's a problem on enough parports, maybe we should look into it
> again..
>   
I did this on my very earliest attempts at diagnostic programs when 
developing my hardware.
There is a SUBSTANTIAL performance penalty.  When you use the EPP / 
IEEE-1284 transfer mode, all the strobe and handshaking is handled by 
the chip, and consecutive data writes or reads can be done about every 
800 ns.  The ISA bridge and/or the par port chip slows everything down a 
lot, so every register access to the par port chip is in the same 
range.  So, each byte write requires writing the data register, 
asserting the strobe, deasserting the strobe, even if you assume the 
hardware always responds in time (no handshaking).  So, it is suddenly 
2.5 us or so per byte.  My boards need about 35 transfers at a minimum, 
so 35 x 2.5 = 88 us of port traffic alone.  With some of the direction 
flipping, it actually is a bit more than that.  When you throw in the 
PID loops, trajectory planning, etc. it can eat up a lot of (real) time.

Jon

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Peter C. Wallace | 11 Dec 00:12

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Sebastian Kuzminsky wrote:

> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:34:59 -0700
> From: Sebastian Kuzminsky <seb@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter C. Wallace wrote:
>> With the 9805, I can see that the strobe ends in response to my wait signal,
>> but the data is sampled somewhere around the falling (leading) edge of the
>> strobe. I thought about an error caused by the port seeing /wait asserted too
>> early so even tried putting a fair sized cap at the parallel port end of
>> /wait, this slowed the handshake, but did not help reading tha data at the
>> right time. Only way I could thnk of making the NetMos cards read right is by
>> supplying read data when READ is high, but thats too ugly (bus conflicts etc)
>> to consider seriously.
>
> I signed up for an account at MosChip.com, after that they let me see
> their docs.  Their FAQ for the 9805 says this:
>
> MosChip 9805 FAQ:
>> An additional problem exists with EPP Mode. We have identified a timing problem
>> in the chip that affects reading data from the remote device in EPP Mode. We are
>> able to write data to the device (printer etc.) just fine under all conditions. The
>> problem only affects reading data back from the device (scanner etc.) in EPP Mode.
>> The symptoms result in the same Byte of data being returned for every read request.
>> This problem does not affect ECP Mode. For this reason we recommend PS/2 or
>> ECP Modes for applications that require bi-directional data transfers.

(Continue reading)

headers

Jon Elson | 11 Dec 02:01

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Sebastian Kuzminsky wrote:
> I signed up for an account at MosChip.com, after that they let me see 
> their docs.  Their FAQ for the 9805 says this:
>
> MosChip 9805 FAQ:
>   
>> An additional problem exists with EPP Mode. We have identified a timing problem
>> in the chip that affects reading data from the remote device in EPP Mode. We are
>> able to write data to the device (printer etc.) just fine under all conditions. The
>> problem only affects reading data back from the device (scanner etc.) in EPP Mode.
>> The symptoms result in the same Byte of data being returned for every read request.
>> This problem does not affect ECP Mode. For this reason we recommend PS/2 or
>> ECP Modes for applications that require bi-directional data transfers.
>>     
>
>
> So yeah, the manufacturer admits that their hardware is broken, not much 
> anyone can do about that...  Unfortunately
WELL!  That really answers that one, no need to spend any more time 
thinking about that particular device!
They only made a million or so of these cards, too!

Jon

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Jon Elson | 11 Dec 01:59

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> With the 9805, I can see that the strobe ends in response to my wait signal, 
> but the data is sampled somewhere around the falling (leading) edge of the 
> strobe. I thought about an error caused by the port seeing /wait asserted too 
> early so even tried putting a fair sized cap at the parallel port end of 
> /wait, this slowed the handshake, but did not help reading tha data at the 
> right time. Only way I could thnk of making the NetMos cards read right is by 
> supplying read data when READ is high, but thats too ugly (bus conflicts etc) 
> to consider seriously.
>
>   
I wonder if this is an EPP 1.7 version of the chip?  I think what you 
are talking about is similar to the 1.7/1.9 difference.
The date code on my chip seems too late to be 1.7, 2003.
It is an NM9805CV.  But, I suspect it is popped, I couldn't get it to do 
anything.

Jon

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Peter C. Wallace | 11 Dec 01:58

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Jon Elson wrote:

> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:59:32 -0600
> From: Jon Elson <elson@...>
> Reply-To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)"
>     <emc-users@...>
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" <emc-users@...>
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board
> 
> Peter C. Wallace wrote:
>> With the 9805, I can see that the strobe ends in response to my wait signal,
>> but the data is sampled somewhere around the falling (leading) edge of the
>> strobe. I thought about an error caused by the port seeing /wait asserted too
>> early so even tried putting a fair sized cap at the parallel port end of
>> /wait, this slowed the handshake, but did not help reading tha data at the
>> right time. Only way I could thnk of making the NetMos cards read right is by
>> supplying read data when READ is high, but thats too ugly (bus conflicts etc)
>> to consider seriously.
>>
>>
> I wonder if this is an EPP 1.7 version of the chip?  I think what you
> are talking about is similar to the 1.7/1.9 difference.
> The date code on my chip seems too late to be 1.7, 2003.
> It is an NM9805CV.  But, I suspect it is popped, I couldn't get it to do
> anything.
>
> Jon

See Sebastian's Email, The MosChip 98XX series of chips EPP mode is just plain 
busted...

(Continue reading)

headers

Sebastian Kuzminsky | 10 Dec 07:28

Re: Write error with hostmot2 and 7i43 board

Peter C. Wallace wrote:
> 
> OK overnight with 1 foot cable, no errors = 24 billion EPP operations error 
> free. I think that one is licked. Trying 12 foot flat cable now, 360 
> million EPP ops with no errors so far...
> 
> I will send out new bitfiles and send replacement (patched) 7I43s.

Peter sent me the updated BIT files and I committed them to the CVS 
Trunk.  I'll commit them into 2.2 this week and they'll be in 2.2.8 when 
it comes out (probably this weekend).

I also added a note to the 7i43 manpage that MosChip 9805-based parports 
wont work with hostmot2...

--

-- 
Sebastian Kuzminsky
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
     -- Ken Thompson

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Kirk Wallace | 5 Dec 04:24

Re: Surface Finsishing

On Thu, 2008-12-04 at 19:10 -0500, admin@... wrote:
> Thanks to Dave, John & Wayne  for the responses. It was helpful.
> A good option would be to fit a sander on the CNC machine. That will
> considerably speed things up.
> I will also see if a simple bead-blasting wont do the job.

I am not very comfortable with having any abrasives near my CNC's. If
bead blasting might work, you may want to consider vibratory finishing.
Here is a link with an overview:
http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/vibratory-finishing-systems.htm

I kind of like the idea of dumping a load of parts, turn the machine on
and go away for a while. It may not be that easy though.

How about a swirl finish?
http://www.lathes.co.uk/craftsman/img16.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LindberghStLouis.jpg

------------
Kirk
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

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Dave Engvall | 3 Dec 06:18

Re: Surface Finsishing

On Dec 2, 2008, at 7:51 PM, admin@... wrote:

> What do you guys use as the quickest and best cost effective and
> time-effective way to finish flat surfaces before the parts are  
> Anodized?
> The parts are 8"x6"x3" Al boxes made from square tube with a few slots
> and holes CNC'd in so the surfaces are still the raw surfaces.
> I can CNC the boxes with a flat-face-mill , but wonder if there isnt
> something else you know of that is maybe a bit faster as I need to  
> clamp
> and turn each side for the mill if I want to do it that way.

If you have a bunch of them to do then rig an A or B rotary axis  
( probably with tailstock).
It could even be hand indexed and locked in place.

Some  people would polish each face on a abrasive flat belt and be   
done with them.
It depends on how much precision you need.

Good Luck.

Dave
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ---

(Continue reading)