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axis 1.2.1-1 doesn't work (patch enclosed)
by Jeff Epler 09 May '06

09 May '06

Earlier this evening, a bdi4emc user on the #emc IRC channel reported that the bdi4emc package of axis 1.2.1-1 doesn't run. The symptom is that axis prints one of the following error messages, and then emc exits: ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/gcode.so: undefined symbol: _ZN7InifileC1Ev ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/gcode.so: undefined symbol: _Z23SET_MOTION_CONTROL_MODEd The error can be reproduced by typing this command at the shell: python -c 'import gcode' After some investigation, I found two problems, one for each error. A patch to the source code of axis is included at the end of this message. This patch will be in the next bugfix release of the axis source code, and I hope that for bdi4emc users Paul Corner will provide new debs with this patch applied as well. You may remember that there have been compatability problems between bdi4emc and axis before now. After the last time, I set up a local system running bdi4emc, and every night the newest version of axis is compiled against emc 1.0-39. So I had rested easy believing I would get an error message from my automated system before Paul let me know there was a problem, and that I'd hear from Paul long before his users ended up with a buggy package. This didn't work out as planned. :( In hindsight, there are two major problems: First, because the steps necessary to produce identical packages to the ones Paul makes are not published, there may be differences between my testing system and the actual packages that I have no control over. This could be the reason that the "Inifile" bug crept in. Second, because the development process of bdi4emc is largely opaque, I have no way of keeping up with internal changes, even when they might impact axis. Instead, I have to wait until after a new emc package version, and then react to any changes made since the prior version. This is the reason that the "SET_MOTION_CONTROL_MODE" bug was not caught by my automated testing system. I very much want to keep axis running on new versions of bdi4emc, because I believe it's the best GUI available for emc. However, it is sometimes a frustrating process. If you can see a way to improve things, please let me know. Thanks for reading this far. Here's the patch against axis 1.2.1 which at least allows the test "python -c 'import gcode'" to succeed: diff -ru python-axis-1.2.1/extensions/gcodemodule.cc python-axis-1.2.1-local/extensions/gcodemodule.cc --- python-axis-1.2.1/extensions/gcodemodule.cc 2006-04-06 09:12:04.000000000 -0500 +++ python-axis-1.2.1-local/extensions/gcodemodule.cc 2006-05-08 21:09:39.000000000 -0500 @@ -455,6 +455,7 @@ CANON_MOTION_MODE motion_mode; void SET_MOTION_CONTROL_MODE(CANON_MOTION_MODE mode, double tolerance) { motion_mode = mode; } +void SET_MOTION_CONTROL_MODE(double tolerance) { } void SET_MOTION_CONTROL_MODE(CANON_MOTION_MODE mode) { motion_mode = mode; } CANON_MOTION_MODE GET_EXTERNAL_MOTION_CONTROL_MODE() { return motion_mode; } diff -ru python-axis-1.2.1/setup.py python-axis-1.2.1-local/setup.py --- python-axis-1.2.1/setup.py 2006-03-20 21:30:01.000000000 -0600 +++ python-axis-1.2.1-local/setup.py 2006-05-08 21:06:59.000000000 -0500 @@ -112,6 +112,7 @@ extra_link_args = [ '-Wl,-rpath,%s' % os.path.join(emcroot, "plat/linux_rtai/lib"), os.path.join(emcroot, "src", ".tmp", "rs274.o"), + '-lnml', '-lm', '-lstdc++' ] ) Jeff -- Jeff Epler <jepler(a)unpythonic.net> http://axis.unpythonic.net/

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Re: Bdi4emc-help Digest, Vol 6, Issue 3
by Andy Holcomb 05 May '06

05 May '06

Thanks Matt, it sounds great, this is one of the things I want to work on this weekend. Andy >Hi Andy, > >If you already have a BDI-based config, you just need to change the EMCMOT >parameter in the [EMCMOT] section of your ini file from "freqmod" to >"quickstep". > >If your PERIOD was set too high because of CPU limitations, you can probably >set it lower. 0.000015 should be fine unless your system is very special. > >If your DEFAULT_ACCELERATION and MAX_ACCELERATION are set unrealistically >high to reduce path errors at corners, go ahead and set them to something >your steppers can really handle, since the new BDI has path error limits. > >If you were avoiding backlash compensation because you were losing steps, go >ahead and put it back in, since quickstep enforces acceleration limits while >compensating. > >Hope that helps, > >Matt > > > > >

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stepper motor emc
by Andy Holcomb 05 May '06

05 May '06

From what I understand there is a new mode for emc to run stepper motors better, I have downloaded and installed bdi 4.44 and installed it. How do I install/run this new mode? Andy

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Announcing the AXIS 1.3a1 source release
by Jeff Epler 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

I'm pleased to announce the first alpha release of AXIS 1.3. AXIS is a modern user-interface for emc2 and bdi4emc. Please visit http://axis.unpy.net/downloads/01145931630 to download AXIS 1.3a1. Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AXIS 1.3 will contain some important new features. It will support emc2 (tested on HEAD) and bdi4emc (tested on BDI 4.38). It may run on emc1, but this is untested. There's not a firm schedule for the release of AXIS 1.3. However, if you are a translator, please work on updating the .po file for your language. The string table will not be frozen before AXIS 1.3rc1, but I hope that there will be few or no string changes between now and then. Changes since 1.2 ================= When "Open" hangs because of a file with an O-code infinite loop in it, it can be interrupted by pressing ESC. The backplot is now updated every 10ms even when the redraw rate is lower. The colors used in the the plot area can be modified by the X Resource Database. For an example light-background configuration, execute xrdb -merge doc/axis_light_background before starting emc. For the preview plot, arcs are now split into a number of segments that depends on the angle the arc covers. This gives a better match between the preview and backplot for "long" arcs, and uses fewer segments for "short" arcs. The pull-down menus have been reorganized in a more logical fashion For EMC2 "run in place", all files are now installed under the emc2/ top directory, and "setup.py install" can be performed as a user. When appropriate, feed rates are displayed as decimal fractions (e.g., F1.5). The incremental jog distances available can be specified in the inifile [DISPLAY]INCREMENTS. These can be decimal numbers (e.g., 10, 0.1) or fractions (e.g., 1/16). Certain arcs were interpreted by AXIS as being nearly 0 degrees, while EMC treated them as being nearly 360 degrees. This has been corrected for the specific case observed, but it's not impossible that there are still differences (EMC uses a hard-coded "fudge-factor" to determine the angle contained by these degenerate arcs, and it's hard to prove that the behavior of emc and axis will be the same in all cases) An additional effort has been made to make the preview and backplot match for files that don't specify G20 or G21 explicitly. However, the AXIS developers still considers the meaning of such files to be undefined. For the "Open" dialog, the list of extensions and their descriptions are read from the .ini [EMC]PROGRAM_EXTENSION lines. This is intended to allow third parties to write "loaders" (e.g. image or dxf to gcode) which will be called by a flexible [EMC]PROGRAM_FILTER which has not yet been written. This version contains all bugfixes from the 1.2.x series of releases.

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bdi-4.4.2: bad sources.list entries
by Kent A. Reed 20 Apr '06

20 Apr '06

Paul: Check the sources.list file in bdi-4.4.2 My copy includes entries like "deb http://dbi4emc.ourproject/debian/ sarge extras non-free" which cause synaptic to barf. Seems wrong on two counts: dbi versus bdi (the classic two-finger keying error) and missing the domain .org? Regards, Kent

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Re: BDI-4.4.2 released. (Paull)
by Kent A. Reed 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

Paul wrote: > > After receiving a report that a clean install of BDI-4.40 failed to boot, I > had to pull the image while the problem was investigated. During the course > of testing, a different and totally new bug was discovered in the > partitioning stage that required extensive upgrades in the install program. I > still have an issue to resolve with the text modes, but most people use the > graphical installer so I'll leave it until the next release. In the meantime, > new images are available from ftp://bdi4emc.ourproject.org/pub/bdi4emc/ and > http://www.cncgear.com/EMC/BDI/ > > > Regards, Paul. > Thanks, Paul. I downloaded the iso from cncgear yesterday evening and installed it as a guest operating system in VMware last night using the graphical installer with no problems. Regards, Kent

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BDI-4.42 released.
by Paul 16 Apr '06

16 Apr '06

After receiving a report that a clean install of BDI-4.40 failed to boot, I had to pull the image while the problem was investigated. During the course of testing, a different and totally new bug was discovered in the partitioning stage that required extensive upgrades in the install program. I still have an issue to resolve with the text modes, but most people use the graphical installer so I'll leave it until the next release. In the meantime, new images are available from ftp://bdi4emc.ourproject.org/pub/bdi4emc/ and http://www.cncgear.com/EMC/BDI/ Regards, Paul.

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RE: Bdi4emc-help Digest, Vol 5, Issue 4
by Craigg Gadd 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

*Message: 4 *Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 10:16:43 +0100 *From: Paul <bdi4emc(a)bulldoghome.com> *Subject: Re: [Bdi4emc-help] RE: Bdi4emc-help Digest, Vol 5, Issue 2 *To: "Help and advice for BDI-4 users." * <bdi4emc-help(a)lists.ourproject.org> *Message-ID: <200604051016.43246.bdi4emc(a)bulldoghome.com> *Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" * * *Hi Gene * *On Wednesday 05 April 2006 04:41, Gene Heskett wrote: *> When I goto circuit city around *> here, its the AGP cards that are only stocked in onesies. Almost *> everything is pci, and I'm talking about the $300 gamer cards none of *> use can even waste time drooling over. * *Be very carefull when looking at video cards, there is a new kid on the *block *to replace AGP - It is called PCI Express (PCIe for short). With a *projected *bandwidth of 8GB/s, it is much, much faster than AGP and makes the old PCI *bus look like a snail in comparison. Of course, it goes without saying that *PCIe is totally incompatable with PCI slots just as AGP is with ISA. * * *Regards, Paul. Well, I was hoping to install a video card but unfortunately my computer chassis only had one slot in the back which the Vital card is occupying. Since taking that out wasn't and option, I went ahead and installed a second processor since the board supports it. This seemed to do the trick and the PERIOD is now set to .00002 and I'm running without problems. Thanks guys! Craig

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quickstep, apt-file
by Jeff Epler 14 Apr '06

14 Apr '06

On the irc channel, a bdi user was talking about what he described as "ringing": <approx> it sounds like emc1 pulsing has some kind of ringing when running constant speed <jepler> what step rates are you trying to attain? <approx> I have 1333 steps/mm . ringing occurs when running over 10mm/s I first suggested that he try "quickstep", but then I couldn't figure out which version(s) of the emc-modules package have quickstep. My bdi test machine has "emc-modules-2.6.12.6-magma+bdi.102" and apt-get doesn't report any newer version is available. But that package doesn't have a "quickstep.o". So my first question is this: Which emc-modules do I have to install to have quickstep available? I tried to answer this question for myself by using apt-file, but I got an error when running "apt-file update": --11:28:24-- http://bdi4emc.ourproject.org/debian/dists/sarge/Contents-i386.gz => `/var/cache/apt/bdi4emc.ourproject.org_debian_dists_sarge_Contents-i386.gz' Resolving bdi4emc.ourproject.org... 193.127.103.92 Connecting to bdi4emc.ourproject.org[193.127.103.92]:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found 11:28:24 ERROR 404: Not Found. Is this an error on my end, or is the ourproject.org apt repository not set up to permit use of apt-file? Thanks -- I'll pass any answers I get along to <approx> on irc. Jeff

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BDI-4.40 released
by Paul 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Finally, after much work, BDI-4.40 is available for download. Currently available from ftp://bdi4emc.ourproject.org/pub/bdi4emc/ and http://www.cncgear.com/EMC/BDI/ Regards, Paul.

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