Hey folks, I'm trying to set up a smooth stepper on a custom built AMD box, and I'm having a devil of a time.  I originally set it up on a laptop, which I've gotten it to work on that brilliantly.  However, installing Mach on the custom AMD box, the smooth stepper loses connection all the time.  If I do get it to be seen at the startup for Mach, it will almost always lose connection as soon as I try to turn the spindle on.  This doesn't happen when using the laptop.  Any ideas?  The computer is closer to the CNC machine, but would that matter?  Everything else is in the same spot regardless of which computer drives the card.

Barry

What else is running on your PC? Anything that hogs huge amounts of processor time has the possibility to delay USB communications. Also, since you say this is a custom AMD box, so you have all the right drivers loaded? Windows will try and do the best it can to find drivers that will work but they may not be the correct ones.

If you loose connection when the spindle turns on it is a noise problem. Spindle motors produce lots of electrical noise and if your turning it on with a relay the relay will also produce a lot of arc noise as well.

Also try a different USB cable. A customer of mine had a heck-uv-a time with a new SmoothStepper that could run for most of a day just fine and then loose connection every few minutes. It turned out to be a bad USB cable.

The pc is custom built for this purpose.  All new athlon 2, 2 gig ram, win xp home premium.  It literally has nothing installed on it except xp, Mach 3, lazy cam and the smooth stepper drivers.  I don't even give it Internet access unless I'm updating it.  I don't think there is any overhead.  The USB cable is the same cable I use with my laptop, so it is known good.  Half the time the smooth stepper isn't even recognized on the pc. If it is, it is guaranteed to fail if I turn the spindle on when using the pc.  The laptop doesn't have these issues.

Barry

I would not say that the cable is 'known good' as it could be just marginally working on the laptop.  Checking with another good quality cable is cheap and easy to do. The symptoms you are describing sound like a bad USB cable. Also, make sure you have all the right drivers for your  PCs hardware.

I've tried with several cables, with all the same result.  The drivers are all up to date.  Nothing in the device manager has ? on them.  I'm able to connect other things to the computer like flash drives or external USB drives if I want to transfer data.  I've tried other ports too, all with the same result.  I just don't see this working on this computer.  Is it finicky?  Is Mach3 finicky computer to computer?

Barry

Are you saying that the SS does not show up in Device manager when it is hooked up? If so what is the status of the three LEDs on the SS?

No, it shows up in the device manager just fine.  It's Mach3 that doesn't see it.  Sometimes I have to power down the card, and power it back up.  Sometimes that won't work either.  It's really odd.

As for the 3 LED's, I'd have to check.  I'm at the day job, the CNC machine is the night job.

Barry

Hi Barry,

You must get to the bottom of the problem when your spindle is turned on. If you don't then you will almost certainly encounter all sorts of strange behavior with Mach and SS in the future.

Is your spindle switched on/off by a relay or a VFD ?.

Tweakie.

It's via relay.  I've been in MN, so i haven't been using the CNC for about a week.  I'll try and troubleshoot this weekend.  I don't think it's the VFD/spindle though, as with the other machine (laptop) it's tits on perfect.  With this PC, I get strange error messages sometimes just by launching Mach3, communication errors, errors seeing the card.  Maybe I should nuke and pave and start over on that machine.

Barry

Hi Barry,

Successful troubleshooting has to be carried out in a well organized and methodical manner, if possible recording the results for future reference - so you must excuse me for asking all the questions.

OK, you are switching your spindle on/off with a relay.

Is this relay switching AC mains voltage to the spindle ?.
Is this relay switching a low voltage DC to control a VFD ?.

Tweakie.