At first my  machine would loose communication with the smooth stepper and still does from time to time. Now i am having a new problem,the machine will stop moving for no apparent reason.I can hit reset and cycle start and it will start back up run a couple of inches then stop,this is happening very randomly . I would appreciate any thoughts.  Thanks,Tommy

When it stops the status bar reads "external estop requested". I put a temp jumper on the bob estop connection, to eliminate a switch problem, and it still happens.

Sounds like noise, try increasing the filter values on the SS config page, try 1.43 it may be enough. Wouldnt recommend going to high though.
Hood

 Hood, Tried that,they were all on "0" and I set them all to "1.43", and it still does the same thing. Thanks,Tommy

Try a bit more and see if  you can get it to stop doing it, maybe 10 or 15? The increment is 1.43 but entering 10 or whatever will round to the nearest I think.


Hood

I made a dry run,everything on but not cutting @ 1.43,no problem.When I started cutting the same problem. Then I changed the settings to 14.30,as soon as I cut the router on the SS quit communicating.I reset the SS, still @14.30,ran 1 part fine,by the time I put the next piece in to cut the SS quit again.Thanks,Tommy

Could it be possible that vibration from cutting is activating your limit switches? Or possibly the extra load is making the spindle produce more noise?
SS losing communication can certainly be noise and carefulyy removing a resistor and capactitor from the SS can help, also if you dont want to modify the SS itself you can carefully cut away the shield on the USB cable at one end which should do the same.
Hood

when the limit switches are activated it would say so in the status bar.I have already removed the resistor and capacitor from the SS. I just thought of something.I recently added an auto zero plate .Could the noise travel thru the plate and wire to my bob and cause this problem.The wire from the bob to the spindle is shielded but the plate is not of course.I will disconnect the auto zero wire and try it .I am stuck in the office for awhile so I can't do it right now. Thanks,Tommy

Hood ,Thanks for your help. It was noise running back thru my auto zero wire.I disconnected it and didn't have any more problems.That's an easy fix with a plug.I left the filter values at 1.43,is that OK or should I try to go back to zero.I don't completely understand what they do . How does a higher setting adversely effect things.Thanks again,Tommy

Personally I would go back to zero if you have no issues with it at that but 1.43 will be fine. The filtering basically means that the SS will  wait for a certain time before it acts on an input. As noise is random and  it is usually in short bursts then it will be ignored where a true signal will be constant. Having too high a value there however will mean true signals are ignored until they have persisted for the length of time set in the filtering. So 1.43 will not be a problem in reality but as said personally I like to have zero filtering if at all possible.
Hood