G100 crashing?

[moreil]

I have a G100 that I'm trying to use the 2.01 g100 plugin with. I've uploaded the firmware and the FPGA files that come with the plugin, but it's not working.

If I start mach3, it repeatedly says 'Found G100', initializing, Found G100, initialing, etc etc etc.

If I just leave it, the G100 starts up with the run LED red. Then after 10 seconds (autoboot timeout), the run LED goes out for about 1 second, following with it comes back on again as red. Rinse, repeat.
When it comes on again red, it's the boot loader running (I can connect to it with a browser).

It looks like the G100 is starting the firmware, running for about 1 second, crashing and restarting the boot loader?

The bootloader says:

Firmware size (bytes):   190806
Core:   RCM3720/RCM3750

So it sure looks like it has the right firmware? I've tried re-uploading the firmware without any change in behaviour.

If I click 'test' in the FPGA section I get:

May 26 21:35:38 [1]: Download manager started
May 26 21:35:41 [2]: ifconfig: ipaddr=C0A80160/FFFFFF00 dhcp=no
May 26 21:35:41 [3]: Starting network...
May 26 21:35:42 [4]: IF_ETH0 is down
May 26 21:35:45 [5]: CRC_OK -- yes
May 26 21:35:45 [6]: Auto boot DLP in 10 sec
May 26 21:35:51 [7]: Ethernet interface is up at 192.168.1.96
May 26 21:35:52 [8]: Auto boot postponed, HTTP used
May 26 21:38:06 [9]: Loading FPGA config 1...
May 26 21:38:07 [10]: XSVF loader completed
May 26 21:38:07 [11]: Programming time = 1046ms
May 26 21:38:07 [12]: Config completed
May 26 21:38:07 [13]: FPGA version register (addr 0x01) reads 0x08
May 26 21:38:07 [14]: FPGA vers.release = 0.8
May 26 21:38:07 [15]: FPGA status register (addr 0x00) reads 0x94

Which looks pretty right to me?

Any ideas??

[Chaoticone]

I have sent you an e-mail that I hope will help you. Sounds to me like you don't have the frimware loaded right or the right firmware. I hope the e-mail helps you. It is the begining of the G100 set-up guide.

Brett

[Chaoticone]

May be a network issue. Can you ping the G100?

Brett

[moreil]

I'm reasonably sure it's not a network issue. I can bring up the download manager web page without any problems, and I can ping the G100.

At least, I can ping it when it's up. It follows the cycle of ping'ing fine for about 15 seconds, then it's off-line for about 5 - 10 seconds and the it's pingable again (As it's constantly cycling..)

What's the byte size of the right firmware? And which firmware is the 'right' one?


Note that I managed to get it working once. After posting initially, I went over and started mach3 and it come right up. I was able to move all the axis on the machine. Then I closed mach3 and restarted it again, and it went back to cycling and I haven't managed to get it to work again.

(Clearly shutting it down was the wrong thing to do!

I suspect that there's some sort of race-condition or timing issue with the way that mach3 initialises the G100. It's not waiting long enough for the G100 to come back onto the network or something.

Ps: Thanks for the updated setup guide, but I'd already done those items.  NI've double checked it, and re-re-re-uploaded the firmware just to be sure. Given that it worked once, I'm strongly doubting that the firmware is the wrong file. Note that the firmware size listed in the setup guide is the same size that the download manager is reporting.

[moreil]

I just put a sniffer on the link between the PC and the G100. The results seem to indicate that the plugin is broken. The plugin issues a /run to the G100, waits 10 seconds and tries to talk. A couple of second after that, the plugin seems to give up and goes back to trying to send /run again. The G100 seems to take a little bit longer than this to come up as a few seconds after the TCP SYN is sent, the G100 sends out a series of broadcast packets (presumably announcing it's alive?).  The plugin keeps on trying to run through it fixed routine with fixed timing where it's not listening when the G100 is talking, and it's not talking when the g100 is listening.

Could someone possibly post the snipper of code that handles the G100 discovery and sync so I can have a go at fixing it for you?

To date, this G100 has just been endless grief. I really regret buying it.

[moreil]

More detail from the sniffer (sorry, I had to type this back in by hand as the mach PC is off the network at the moment).

time  action

4.5   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
4.9   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
5.4   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
6.1   PC sends SYN
9.1   PC re-sends SYN
9.4   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
9.9   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
10.4   PC sends UDP discover to 13887
11.1   PC re-sends SYN
11.469   G100 sends SYN-ACK (segment lost)
11.472   G100 sends reply to discover to 255.255.255.255
11.473   G100 sends reply to discover to PC
11.477   G100 sends reply to discover to 255.255.255.255
11.478   G100 sends reply to discover to PC
11.480   G100 sends reply to discover to 255.255.255.255
11.481   G100 sends reply to discover to PC
11.484   G100 sends SYN-ACK
 [ tcp conversation doing POST /run.cgi follows ]
11.629  ends.
19.931   PC sends UDP discover to 255.255.255.255 port 13887
20.368   PC sends UDP discover to 255.255.255.255 port 13887
20.806   PC sends UDP discover to 255.255.255.255 port 13887


21.572  PC sends SYN
24.540   PC re-sends SYN
24.853   G100 sends reply to all packets!


It appears to me that the mach plugin stops listening for discovery replies as soon as it starts trying to send the POST /run.cgi

Basically, the G100 takes 7 seconds to start replying to the discovery packets (still going through boot-up?)  but mach gives up a few seconds too soon.

[Chaoticone]

I have sent you a personal message.

Brett

[123cnc]

ChaoticOne,

Could you post or reply with some light on this problem.

I'm having identical trouble with my G-Rex and had posted on CNCzone with no updates.

My sentiment, similar to moreil, is also nearing the end of what I thought was a great buy with the G-Rex, but it seems like a really bad relationship, suffering from poor communication.

[moreil]

The outcome is no outcome.

There's no configuration problem, the network works fine. It's fairly clear from the sniffer traces and the G100 documentation that the pluginhas a bug of some sort.

Basically, the communication between the G100 and the plugin live-locks: The plugin is not waiting long enough for the reply back from the G100 and so attempts to reset the G100 even as it's replying.

If I leave it for a few hours, it eventually sync's up, so the timing is close, but not quite.

Very very annoying.

I suspect it's time to give up on the g100. I'm currently looking at the EMC2 software and the Mesa Electronics M5I20 board. It a PCI board that plugs into the PC, but at least it's stable!

[Brian Barker]

I have sent this to Steve (the firmware guy for the G100) we will see what he thinks about his and if he can get it working for you.

Thanks
Brian