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Messages - dgates80

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1
I am running a smoothstepper under Win7 home premium 64 bit.  Works good.  Working out a electrical noise issue that knocks out comms periodically, but I have ID's the specific source and working the issue to get it running 100% (yes, it's a new installation).  It runs my machine *much* better than the PP driver ever did.

2
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 03, 2011, 03:42:56 PM »
I agree, not all that efficient, however I have the stuff to do the ATX PSU conversion on hand, and it's money I don't have to spend. 

interesting comment about not using the BOB power via the ribbon cables.  The BOB docs say that it's fine to do so, but maybe not int his case.  I think I will try USB power first, then eventually set up the external 5V -- I can use a utility source of 5V for other stuff anyway.

3
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 03, 2011, 12:56:49 PM »
Just the port 1 and port 2 cables.  I have thought about building a little 5v external supply using an ATX computer power supply, putting a 10ohm 10W resistor onto the output to provide the nessessary minimum load for proper regulation and providing terminal posts etc. as accessories.  With that I suppose I *could* power the SS from a well regulated external supply. 

Cart before the horse though, would like to identify where the noise impulse is coming from first, might be from the computer side.  Will be working the procedure you requested tomight after work, did not get out to the shop yesterday hardly at all, I had evening meetings to take care of.

4
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 02, 2011, 05:39:44 PM »
By "ribbon cables" I am guessing you refer to the port 1 and port 2 cables coming off the PMDX-126 BOB to the smoothstepper. 

I am not sure what Steve is doing to produce 5v on his BOB, probably something like a a LM7805 or the like. 

There is a fairly small transformer connected to 115VAC, a pair of small surface mount bridge rectifiers, some small can caps, and two three pin regulator chips... pretty standard power supply design. 


5
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 02, 2011, 05:27:15 PM »
Would you be willing to try something for me? Remove the UPS. Unplug the ribbon cable(s) from the SmoothStepper and make sure it is powered by the USB cable, not an external supply. This should still let Mach connect to the SS, with Mach talking to the SS (red LED blinking) try your shop heater and see if the SS/PC communication is still disrupted.

I just gained operational success when I moved the heater to a different breaker in my shops load center. 

I will restore the electric config that causes problems and give it a try for you though.  I suppose I will also need to rejumper teh SS board to use USB power too, right?

-dg

6
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 02, 2011, 05:01:16 PM »
Got the UPS installed.  Th shop vac no linger kills USB comms but the heater does.  Hmmm.  Variations on a theme will fix this.  With the outside temp going to be 27F tonight, gotta have the heater!

7
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 02, 2011, 09:18:25 AM »
Turns out the shopvac does the same thing as the heater, kicks the USB comms offline.  I think I am going to try a UPS / line conditioner on the motor control 115VAC plug, see if that cures this.

On a bright note, I left the machine running overnight and it was still up and running this morning, a 10 hour run with no usb comms drops.  I'm liking that!


8
SmoothStepper USB / Re: PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control
« on: February 01, 2011, 06:18:23 PM »
Much improvement.  First, SS runs stable using the HP laptop!  How about that! 

This is not to say that I still don't get USB comm faults, I do.  But guess what?  I have identified a smoking gun!  It trips offline every time the shop heater kicks on, repeatably.  Every time.  Whoo Hoo! 

Now, how do I fix THAT?  Hmmm.  The shop heater is a kerosene "turbine" type heater, old as heck, puts out a ton of heat.  Works great.  I note though that it is *not* grounded, and generates a fair bit of RFI when running as evidenced by the static I hear on the shop radio.  I wonder if I grounded the heater frame......

I am going to try that, along with a couple of other things related to grounding and see if I can chase this gremlin down.

The other computer may have had greater sensitivity to the noise, for one.  I think there may have been multiple issues working too though, dunno for sure.


9
Looking at the guidenet website regarding usb problems, the issue may indeed be the usb chipset in the *Athlon* AMD motherboard on the CNC host computer.....  Thinking about it, this machine's mobo has had more than it's share of wierdness in the past.  The SATA implementation did not play well with an OCZ SSD, for example.

I may see a dramatic change in the state of computer happyness with this laptop tomorrow. 

Think kind thoughts....

=dg

10
I'm not sure I follow. If you have the SS externally powered and turn off the external power supply it will of course shut off and the PC won't see it any more. If you have the SS powered by the USB cable it should always show up.

I have *not* tried several things (had a job to run today) -- USB cable is unchanged, computer is unchanged, etc.  Much to try before I truely throw my hands up.....

Oh -- I checked, this is a recently shipped SS board that have the cap and the resistor next to the USB port on the SS removed.  

Hanging it up for today.  

Q:  When the plugin is scanning for the SS USB device, what exactly is is looking for?  The device had many enumerated properties, one of which is not getting picked up... sometimes.  The device is clearly being recognized by Win7, as evidenced by it showing up in dev mgr when plugged in and then going away when unplugged or powered down.  

Based on the error messages it is pretty clear it's related to the USB comms.  Once the FPGA gets initialized, it's all good until usb comms drops.  

Time for dinner.  Managed to get cut job done, though it took 5 tries to run roughly 12,000 lines of gcode.  Should have taken, with tool changes, 90 minutes, worked on it 5 hours.

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