#linuxcnc-devel Logs

Aug 24 2017

06:44 AM -!- #linuxcnc-devel mode set to +v by ChanServ
09:56 AM mozmck: I need to add support to a bitfile for a spindle tach input. I see that there is a QCountTag which looks like is used for quadrature encoders, but there is also a ScalerCounterTag. What is that for, and might it be better for a tach input? I only need to measure speed and only one input pin.
10:00 AM cradek: mozmck: can you use counter-mode on an encoder input? you'd put the tach on the A input and read the velocity out
10:01 AM cradek: (found in man hostmot2)
10:02 AM mozmck: Yes, it looks like I can do that, but I was wondering in the bitfile about using the ScalerCounterTag instead and if there would be any advantage or difference.
10:02 AM cradek: heh I don't know anything about that kind of thing :-)
10:03 AM mozmck: Can I just assign a pin to the A input of the QCountTag and leave the rest without pins I wonder?
10:04 AM mozmck: Ok, it's probably pcw question - thanks.
10:13 AM jepler: mozmck: yes, I'm pretty sure that you can do that in the firmware source
10:13 AM mozmck: thanks - I'll try it then
10:13 AM jepler: (have just one channel of quadrature counter have a physical pin)
10:13 AM jepler: you will still have to set it to counter mode in your hal configuration, that won't happen automatically
10:14 AM jepler: (though doing it automatically when there's only one physical pin would be a nice trick)
10:17 AM jepler: (hm, I wonder if it would be better overall if the loadrt string specified which pins were to be devoted to their special purpose instead of gpio; then you wouldn't have to specify the number of stepgens, just the pins they use)
10:17 AM jepler: (loadrt hm2_pci special_pins=0,5,10-23)
10:19 AM jepler: (it fixes problems with wanting to use fewer than all of the pins in an instance for their special purpose; and with the occasional desire to activate e.g., stepgen 1 and 3 but not 0 and 2 because it's convenient for pin assignments)
10:40 AM mozmck: That sounds like a great idea.
11:21 AM pcw_home: The scaler component was done for a multichannel radiation scaler (frequency counter)
11:21 AM pcw_home: so is deliberately small (72 channels fit in a 7I90)
11:23 AM pcw_home: probably easier to just use a encoder counter with just "A" to avoid driver work
11:23 AM pcw_home: (it will count down unfortunately)
11:27 AM jepler: can just set the scale negative in hal
11:46 AM pcw_home: Looks like the forum is offline
11:47 AM jepler: looking into it
11:47 AM jepler: ssh: Could not resolve hostname forum.linuxcnc.org: Temporary failure in name resolution
11:47 AM seb_kuzm1nsky: dns is hard
11:48 AM jepler: ironically, while trying to find out more, my browser sez: dreamhoststatus.coms server DNS address could not be found.
11:49 AM jepler: https://twitter.com/dhstatus/status/900750381201883136
11:49 AM jepler: Our Admins are currently investigating connectivity issues which indicate an issue related to our name servers. https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/
11:49 AM jepler: so yeah it's down, but there's no effective corrective action to take on our end at this time
11:49 AM cradek: they're investigating the issue which indicates an issue
11:51 AM cradek: they're investigating the issue which indicates the issue related to the problem
11:51 AM cradek: too bad they don't get more characters on twitter - they might have been clearer then
11:51 AM archivist: failed to resolve ns2.dreamhost.com due to 64.90.62.230 - query timed out
11:52 AM jepler: dreamhoststatus.com. 172800 IN NS ns1.dreamhost.com.
11:52 AM archivist: all the servers are dead by the look of it
11:52 AM jepler: on the one hand they had the sense to put their status page on a different domain
11:52 AM jepler: but they didn't have the sense to serve its name from a different nameserver!
11:53 AM archivist: they have 3 ip addresses for the name servers
11:55 AM jepler: right, but their status page working depends on the rest of their infrastructure working
11:55 AM jepler: on certain parts of their normal infrastructure working
11:56 AM jepler: not sure if the link will work when shared but https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=a%3adreamhoststatus.com&run=toolpage comes up with 3 "A" records for dreamhoststatus.com
11:57 AM jepler: hahah if you go to http://208.113.157.108/ you get a redirect to http://www.208.113.157.108/ !
11:58 AM jepler: (that's one of the addresses that mxtoolbox gave to me for dreamhoststatus.com)
11:59 AM archivist: that tool said Sorry, we couldn't find any name servers for 'dreamhoststatus.com'
12:00 PM archivist: I looked for the a record using http://www.squish.net/dnscheck/v1.html (very slow as it trawls ALL the dns
12:00 PM archivist: its fast if dns is working
01:07 PM hazzy2 is now known as hazzy
01:46 PM jepler: hm apparently there are claims that Dreamhost is being DDOSsed becuse of something something nazi website
01:48 PM jepler: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15091223 https://twitter.com/dhstatus/status/900767557472407552
01:48 PM jepler: apparently they are the refuge of the moment of that nazi website that has been getting so much press lately
01:50 PM hazzy: interesting ...
01:55 PM cradek: I thougth dreamhost was the one that said they wouldn't host it
01:56 PM cradek: hm maybe not
02:36 PM jepler: I sure don't know the truth, nor am I interested in researching it at this time
02:37 PM jepler: I could potentially put the forum up under a different DNS name, since it is not hosted at dreamhost, just gets its DNS from there..
02:39 PM jepler: we could use this as a reason to move our DNS to a different hosted DNS service; digitalocean will serve DNS for you, for instance
02:41 PM jepler: just now flo and dreamhoststatus both resolved for me, so maybe thery're successfully digging out of their hole
02:41 PM jepler: dreamhoststatus.com states, among other problems, "status page: partial service disruption". But their ticketing system is fully operational, hooray for that :-P
02:42 PM jepler: > [Identified] Our engineers have identified the cause of the DNS degradation as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. We are beginning to mitigate the attack and will update this post as new information becomes available.
03:01 PM mozmck_lp: Yeah, we use dreamhost as well and our stuff was down. I think they are getting it back up now though.
03:43 PM mozmck_lp: Could noise on the probe input cause probe to miss the input - or not see it for a couple of seconds?
03:45 PM cradek: seconds!?
03:47 PM pcw_mesa: if its debounced, the filter can keep the output stuck for an indefinite period if the input is very noisy
03:49 PM Tom_itx: pcw_home, for sync motion you link the index enable similar to this: net spindle-index-enable motion.spindle-index-enable <=> hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.encoder.01.index-enable
03:49 PM Tom_itx: do you know what they use to reset the index for orient?
03:49 PM pcw_mesa: Yes
03:49 PM Tom_itx: care to share? :)
03:50 PM pcw_mesa: yes thats the correct "netting"
03:50 PM Tom_itx: right, i've done sync motion with it. i'm trying now to get orient to work
03:50 PM pcw_mesa: motion sets index-enable true when it needs to detect index
03:51 PM Tom_itx: the pid is putting out a pulse but motion is not indicating anything
03:51 PM Tom_itx: i'm just not sure how to trigger it so motion.spindle will become active
03:51 PM Tom_itx: or if it even does since it's done with orient
03:52 PM pcw_mesa: when the encoder index enable hal pin is set, the driver arms the hardware to search for index
03:52 PM Tom_itx: what signal should i use to trigger it?
03:52 PM pcw_mesa: you have all you need in the above net command
03:52 PM Tom_itx: the same one that sets orient.enable?
03:53 PM Tom_itx: i'm not getting any output though
03:53 PM pcw_mesa: Output?
03:53 PM Tom_itx: to the spindle drive
03:53 PM Tom_itx: the pid.x.output is putting out a signal like it's supposed to
03:54 PM pcw_mesa: Dont think thats related to index
03:54 PM Tom_itx: http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:81/~webpage/cnc/configs/sherline/sherline.hal
03:54 PM Tom_itx: that's what i've got currently
03:55 PM Tom_itx: i'm not exactly sure where to go next
03:55 PM Tom_itx: something should be there to turn the spindle so the index pulse can come around i would think
03:56 PM pcw_mesa: so you have 2 PIDs one for orient and one for spindle speed?
03:56 PM Tom_itx: yes
03:56 PM Tom_itx: toggled my mux2
03:57 PM pcw_mesa: Yeah I would expect that motion has to do something very much like homing to search for index
03:57 PM pcw_mesa: (But I have zero experience with how orient works)
03:57 PM Tom_itx: that's two of us :D
03:59 PM Tom_itx: i'll wait and see what andy thinks
04:01 PM pcw_mesa: Hmm I dont see that orient knows anything about index :-(
04:01 PM Tom_itx: yea
04:01 PM Tom_itx: h
04:01 PM pcw_mesa: need a better orient component....
04:02 PM Tom_itx: i need to learn how to code in python or such
04:03 PM Tom_itx: i can't see anything that would trigger the spindle to start there
04:04 PM mozmck_lp: re: probing, yes, seconds! I have two guys having a similar problem, one says the input is on for two seconds before the probe move stops. Another says it never stops.
04:06 PM mozmck_lp: I'm not using software debounce, but the input does go through an opto-isolator.
04:09 PM Tom_itx: net orient-mode motion.spindle-orient => orient.0.enable pid.1.enable mux2.0.sel
04:09 PM Tom_itx: that should trigger it to start i would think
04:16 PM pcw_mesa: contact issue with the switch?
04:19 PM pcw_mesa: Tom_itx: motion does some of spindle orient also (see M19)
04:19 PM Tom_itx: right
04:20 PM Tom_itx: it's supposed to trigger orient i though
04:21 PM Tom_itx: i'm gonna do some testing later and take a screenshot of hal config
04:21 PM Tom_itx: to see what signals are active during M19
04:22 PM pcw_mesa: so if you have the correct M19 command and the orient angle is coming from motion.spindle-orient-angle it should rotate until motion.spindle-is-oriented is set true
04:23 PM Tom_itx: how's it gonna know where it is if the count isn't reset on the previous index pulse though?
04:23 PM Tom_itx: or is that what that index line i posted above does?
04:23 PM pcw_mesa: donna know...
04:23 PM Tom_itx: same one used for orient
04:23 PM Tom_itx: err sync motion
04:23 PM pcw_mesa: yeah maybe...
04:24 PM Tom_itx: i wonder if one of the orient signals should be tied into that somehow
04:25 PM pcw_mesa: it may be up to you to set index enable and handle the oriented handshake
04:26 PM Tom_itx: that's getting on the edge of my knowledge base :)
04:26 PM Tom_itx: i followed the vismach example as close as i could i believe
04:28 PM Tom_itx: and even if the pid isn't tuned right, it reaches it's max limit and should put out that value to the spindle-value
04:35 PM Tom_itx: makin my head hurt. i'll look more later
04:43 PM mozmck_lp: Well, looks like user error on the probe stuff - sorry for the noise :-(
05:02 PM seb_kuzm1nsky: see if there's an upgrade for user.deb
05:04 PM seb_kuzm1nsky is now known as seb_kuzminsky
06:51 PM Tom_itx: pcw_home, seems machinekit has an orient v2
06:58 PM Tom_itx: the docs appear the same except the pin list was left out on orientv2