Nowforever VFD driver

Nowforever D100 and E100 VFD LinuxCNC HAL userspace interface / driver, using RS485 Modbus RTU

Build and install

I'm assuming you already have set up LinuxCNC, if not, go to their website https://linuxcnc.org to get started.

To download and build the driver, we need some additional packages:

• git, download the repository
• libmodbus-dev, development files for the Modbus connection
• linuxcnc-uspace-dev, development files for LinuxCNC

$ sudo apt-get install git libmodbus-dev linuxcnc-uspace-dev
$ git clone https://github.com/havardAasen/nowforever_vfd.git
$ cd nowforever_vfd
$ make
$ sudo make install

Documentation and usage

The man-page nowforever_vfd.1 describes the parameter to adjust on the Nowforever VFD. It also lists the different command-line options if you need to customize anything regarding Modbus The man-page also lists the pins and signals which is used with LinuxCNC.

The provided file custom.hal is an example on how to create the signals and connect the pins to LinuxCNC.

Testing

If you want to test the VFD, you can use one of the sample configurations that comes shipped with LinuxCNC.

• Execute the steps in Build and install, ending with installing the binaries.
• Open LinuxCNC and choose one of the sample configurations. Sample Configurations -> sim -> axis choose one of axis, axis_9axis or axis_mm.
• Say yes to copy the files to your home folder.
• Exit LinuxCNC
• Copy the custom.hal file, from the repository into the newly created configuration folder
• In the configuration folder, edit the axis*.ini file you wish to use. It's three of these, but you only need to use one of them.
• Go to HAL section and comment out HALFILE = sim_spindle_encoder.hal.
• Continuing in the HAL section, add HALFILE = custom.hal as the last entry.

License

This software is released under the GPLv2 license. See the file COPYING for more information.