The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Day: March 5, 2013

  • Eagle HAL Configuration: Nostromo N52 Controller

    Combining some of the pin names generated by hal_input with the recipe for creating HAL devices, here’s a test configuration that hitches an old Nostromo N52 controller to a LinuxCNC system (clicky for more dots):

    Nostromo N52 Controller - HAL config
    Nostromo N52 Controller – HAL config

    The F01 key lights the red LED, the Orange Button lights the green LED, and a oneshot timer pulses the blue LED for half a second after the Button closes. The Thread block defines the connections from the functions to the main timing routine, and the loadrt block defines the thread timing. The hal_input module takes care of its own input sampling in userspace.

    Now, for the classic embedded system “Hello, world!” test:

    Nostromo N52 Controller - F01 test
    Nostromo N52 Controller – F01 test

    It’s amazing how good an LED can make you feel…

    A halscope shot shows the timing relation between the Orange Button (confusingly hitched to the greenkey signal) and the oneshot pulse:

    HalScope - oneshot triggering
    HalScope – oneshot triggering

    That schematic produces this HAL configuration file:

    # HAL config file automatically generated by Eagle-CAD ULP:
# [/mnt/bulkdata/Project Files/eagle/ulp/hal-write-2.5.ulp]
# (C) Martin Schoeneck.de 2008
# Charalampos Alexopoulos 2011
# Mods Ed Nisley KE4ZNU 2010 2013
# Path        [/mnt/bulkdata/Project Files/eagle/projects/LinuxCNC HAL Configuration/]
# ProjectName [Nostromo]
# File name   [/mnt/bulkdata/Project Files/eagle/projects/LinuxCNC HAL Configuration/Nostromo.hal]
# Created     [12:28:04 14-Feb-2013]

####################################################
# Load realtime and userspace modules
loadrt threads name1=test-thread period1=1000000
loadusr -W hal_input -K +Nostromo:0 -KRL +Nostromo:1
loadrt constant		count=1
loadrt oneshot		count=1

####################################################
# Hook functions into threads
addf oneshot.0		test-thread
addf constant.0		test-thread

####################################################
# Set parameters

####################################################
# Set constants
setp constant.0.value	0.5

####################################################
# Connect Modules with nets
net bluepulse input.1.led-scrolll oneshot.0.out
net duration constant.0.out oneshot.0.width
net greenkey input.0.key-leftalt oneshot.0.in input.1.led-capsl
net redkey input.0.key-tab input.1.led-numl

    A snapshot of the Nostromo.sch, Nostromo.hal, hal_config.lbr, and hal-write-2.5.ulp files is in Nostromo-N52.zip.odt. Rename it to get rid of the ODT suffix, unzip it, and there you go.