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Messages - sdmuleman

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard Stops Working
« on: September 20, 2014, 12:21:11 AM »
Well, after a fair bit of playing with things I've come to the conclusion that this appears to a noise issue, likely due to use of what I suspect is an unshielded parallel port cable. Not sure why noise on the parallel port would cause the USB keyboard to go wonky, but I was able to pretty conclusively pin it down to that cable, and upon consideration I realize that the cable I got is a generic computer parallel cable, vs the cnc4pc shielded cable I had on the previous setup. Hopefully replacing the cable fixes the problem.

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General Mach Discussion / Keyboard Stops Working
« on: September 19, 2014, 02:28:04 AM »
I'm having intermittent issues with a new build machine 'loosing' the keyboard and looking for advice on what would cause this. The system is a Dell Optiplex 755 running Windows XP and a downloaded copy of Mach 3 downloaded about 2 weeks ago. I'm running a parallel port CNC4PC BOB driving a 4 axis milling machine (though only 3 axis are in use). The keyboard and mouse are generic Chinese USB units. The machine functions are consistently working properly - no signs of output conflicts, freezing, etc, and the mouse also consistently works fine. The PC is a new refurbished unit with a clean windows reload and is only running mach3 with no other software or interfaces.

The first symptoms were that the machine would not jog consistently by keyboard - it would start jogging but then stop after anywhere from 1-20 seconds and sometime restart if the key was held down. To me it was acting like a bad keyboard but swapping keyboards showed the same symptoms - it acted like an intermittent loss of signal. It would do this for both directions on all 3 axises. This seems to have gotten better over time (1-2 hrs of computer run time while working on other settings and wiring) but then it would loose the keyboard all together after 1-5 minutes of mach 3 run time - in this case the 'num/caps lock' lights would go out and no keys would work exactly as if it was unplugged. Unplugging the keyboard and plugging it back in to a different port would cause Windows to recognize it as a new device, install drivers and then it would work again, only to stop later. I tried swapping ports with the mouse and have used multiple USB ports to no avail.

The one consistency I have found is that the keyboard stops working immediately when the spindle is running - lights go out and no keys work. Unplugging and plugging back in while the spindle is on causes an error in Mach 3. (I do not recall what error exactly)

I have tried reloading mach 3 and have followed the direction with regard to rebooting after the parallel port driver install. It seems pretty clear to me there's some sort of a conflict between the Windows keyboard input system and Mach 3, but I'm not clear why or how. All of the Mach 3 functions seem to be working properly and there are no errors or notices from Windows or Mach 3 when the keyboard stops working. It's as if it just decides to ignore the keyboard, though since the mouse still works fine it seems like the USB ports are still working properly which points at the actual keyboard driver/interface somehow. 

I built a very similar machine using essentially the same PC roughly 3 months ago and didn't have this problem so I am quite confused. That machine was the same exact model of PC from the same supplier, but the 3 month difference could mean different software versions or something, and the video card I am using this time is different. The Mach 3 software was also recently downloaded vs the ~3 month old copy on the last machine. Not sure if any of this would make a difference, but putting it on the post in case it does.

Thanks,
     ~John

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