I am getting two "Microsoft Raw Ports" in the "eject removable device" gadget.  Hmmm.  It's being a piggy mystery why it sometimes works and sometimes does not.  Going to get the laptop soon and see if that works more reliably.  In the middle of a cut job, too! 

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.

The SS *is* powered by the PMDX-126.  It powers off when I turn off AC power to it and the G540, is all on same AC switch.

Problem is that the comms to the SS drops out, then the M3 plug in reports no SS found during USP port scan.  Dev Mgr shows it there. 

I may have found a clue -- it sems if I force a "scan for hardware changes" it makes the SS USB device available again.  I think. 

Problem *may* be this comouter, it's an Athlon 64 running Win7 Ultimate 32 bit.  Laptop is an Intel i7 CPU, may load different code during the USB driver install.  Or, maybe USB hardware on this computer is flakey. 

When it runs, it runs great.  It just periodically drops USB comms.

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.....

Quote from: Jeff_Birt on January 31, 2011, 06:17:51 PM

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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.