Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => SmoothStepper USB => Topic started by: turbothis on August 05, 2011, 01:48:24 PM
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i was just cutting away and used the "edit g-code" button. did my editing, closed to save and the dam mach3 just locks up. i closed it down and now my mach wont get past the timeout error getting data. ???
i changed nothing and there is no smoke in the room. what gives?
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i have the green and blue lights lit on the ss.
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Unplug the SS and plug it in again, restart Mach, should do it.
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gggoooood! i did all that before and of coarse now that some one says to try that it works. ::)
why did this happen?
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Before your second post, I KNEW you had a smoothstepper, that's the error you get trying to restart Mach3 after the SS has lost communication.
The SS lost communication with the computer. It happens and there have been many sort-of solutions here and on the warp9 forum. Look there or here for possible things to try, or perhaps one of the experts will pop in and point you. I don't remember where all this talk took place. It was mostly to do with grounding, but also powering the SS from an external 5v power supply, plugging the SS into a powered USB hub instead of the pc directly, and other solutions, none of which were really definitive!! Search around and try some of these things, different USB cable, power from external 5v supply, USB hub, cutting the outside metal shield off the SS end of the USB cable (carefully!!), unsoldering some stuff on the SS itself (I never went there!)
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This can also have a lot to do with your settings in Mach or even other programs running on the PC. Please take a look at: http://www.soigeneris.com/Documentation-content.aspx (http://www.soigeneris.com/Documentation-content.aspx) and look in the SmoothStepper section for the Installation tips. That should help you with the most common causes of problems.
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well, milling a piece and she stopped midway. windows 7 was acting like it wanted to update or something on the mach screen but it might have been looking for the smoothstepper.?
now i am back to where i was when i started this thread. losing money. :P
i might try to update the driver.....
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how do i upate the ss driver and plug-in?
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Read the document I linked to above :)
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Back to where you were at the start of this thread? How so? Blue and green light on the SS, or do you just mean losing money?
For anyone to suggest a solution, they have to know what's happening. Like what do you mean Windows 7 was acting like it wanted to update or something? Or "it might have been looking for the smoothstepper."
Did you do the suggested SS fixes, separate 5v power, USB hub, better/different USB cable, Jeff's superbe document on setting up the SS?
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mach was milling away and just stopped and then the screen went hazy. the little mouse curser started spinning like it was doing something. this lasted for about 10 minutes untill i ended the program.
blue and green still lit.
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i can read just fine but still dont understand it.
i can hook up non usb 5volt real quick....
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the ss is holding on the flood and chip auger relays too. even with it unplugged from the pc.
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well, after just leaving it off for lunch it now works again but has the red light blinky fast.
is there a code book for this?
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The red light should be "blinky fast". If it's not "blinky fast", the SS us stuck/has lost communication with the PC. Unplug the SS, plug it in again, start Mach3 again. Should be OK now.
The red LED isn't blinking any code, and there are no "code books" for this.
The hopelessly out of date SS manual on the Warp9 web site explains the LED activity. Red should be solid until you load Mach, which is loading the SS plugin, which in turn loads the firmware into the SS. The SS firmware loads every time, it's not stored onboard the SS when it's powered down. Once the firmware is loaded and communication is established, the red LED blinks. If you're running and the red LED STOPS blinking, and you only have blue and green LED's, it's stuck and has lost communication, as I said above. The losing communication is the issue that all the talk has been about for years, regarding grounding, external power for 5v, powered USB hub, removing a resistor and capacitor on the SS, noise getting into the system, all sorts of stuff. The plugin version can even change this!! And as Jeff has pointed out, the Mach3/SS config setup.
It's frustrating when this happens, but I've personally never had it happen when just running along making chips.
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ha, so blinking red is good? i swear it has not blinked red yet while running and i have been cutting for a descent amount of time.
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well, it did it again so i hooked up the external 5v and will see what happens next. works for now...........
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Good day:
I am getting the same scenarrio, and I have the external 5v. Still gets the Loosing data screen. What seems to be happening is the computer is loosing the driver for the smoothstepper, when I unplug it for 10 seconds and than plug it back in the computer re installs the driver, than it works fine, but that doesn't help when I am in the middle of a job, because when you unplug the USB the dro's do not naintain the same readings and I have to start over.
I have done all the suggestions for grounding and unsoldering , Hooked a ground lead from board to PC. etc. from discussions with Greg. Have dissabled all the computer auto updates and is not connected to the internet. Have no idea what the problems are, but would sure like to get them fixed..
Toad
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Usually this is because Windows is turning off the USB port. Go to: http://www.soigeneris.com/Documentation-content.aspx (http://www.soigeneris.com/Documentation-content.aspx) and look for the SmoothStepper section and download the installation tips. It will tell you how to disable the automatic power off 'feature' from WinXP.
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Thanks Jeff;
I did not know about this, I will give it a shot, It sounds like it should work.
Toad