Re: Smaract MCS2 position polling issue

[Torsten Bögershausen via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hej Jeff,
It looks as if you are using Ethernet, right ?
I haven't digged into details yet, this will happen the next days.
It seems as if the polling takes some time, which of course
takes more time, the more axes you are polling.
Can you run a tool like wireshark or tcpdump to find out, how many
milliseconds the MCS2 needs to respond ?

Another thought:
How many axes are moving at the same time ?
It may be possible to modify the poller to poll only
axes that are moving, which may allow a higher poll rate
for a single axis move.

Another question:
Did anybody ever consider to use the SDK from Smaract to develop
a model3 driver for the MCS2 ?
I suspect that this may allow higher poll-rates as well.

PS: The scan fiels is not used, as far as I know.


On 2024-10-05 00:50, Jeffrey Gamsby via Tech-talk wrote:
> It seems as if the threshold is 5 axis,
>
> MCS2CreateController("MCS2", "MCS2_ETH", 5, 100, 100)
>
> this works fine, but as soon as I go to 6 or above, I have delay problems.
>
> I have tried setting the SCAN value to .1 second, I have tried 
> changing the active and idle poll periods, but so far no luck.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 3, 2024 at 10:24 PM Jeffrey Gamsby <jfgamsby at lbl.gov 
> <mailto:jfgamsby at lbl.gov>> wrote:
>     Hi,
>
>     This is my first post and I'm relatively new to EPICS.
>
>     I am trying to use an MCS2 Smaract Controller with 9 axes, the issue
>     I am having right now is the performance on the position information.
>
>     The relevant config file seems to be the smaractmcs2.iocsh and this
>     is what I'm using:
>
>     # PORT, MCS_PORT, number of axes, active poll period (ms), idle poll
>     period (ms)
>     MCS2CreateController("MCS2", "MCS2_ETH", 9, 100, 100)
>
>     It's taking more than 30 seconds for moves to complete (using DMOV),
>     even for repeat moves that should not go anywhere.
>
>     Ideally I would want position updates for each axis in the ms range,
>     how can I troubleshoot and solve this problem?
>
>     Thanks,
>     Jeff