I have a Smoothstepper connected to a T42 laptop running Windows XP SP3.

Ever so often, I see an error message: FT_IO_ERROR. This causes Mach 3 to hang and the only way to recover is to kill it via task manager. Needless to say, if this happens when a program is running, the job is ruined.

I have been through this board and done the following:

Isolated the Smoothstepper physically and electrically from the rest of the electronics.
Changed USB cables.
Switched to Standard PC mode on the computer.

Can anyone point me to what else I could do? I am literally tearing my hair out...

First warning: Sometimes laptops do not work with Mach, even with a SmoothStepper. I would suggest reinstalling XP in standard mode, I have read reports that trying to switch it after installation does not always work properly. But try these other things first.

Download this document: http://www.soigeneris.com/Document/Installing_and_Configuring_the_SmoothStepper.pdf . I wrote this up to make it easier to get this information out to everyone. I have found in many cases that a ferrite clipped over the USB cable will really help on may USB devices: http://www.soigeneris.com/Ferrite_for_USB_cable-details.aspx.

Let us know if any of this helps.

Thanks, Jeff.

I will try and rebuild the computer this weekend and see how it goes.

I tried all the steps in the document mentioned above. Now the FT_IO Errors are gone, but I have a new issue.

As long as the Smoothstepper is  not connected to the breakout board, all works correctly. As soon as I plug in the breakout board via the ribbon cable, Mach3 is frozen as soon as it starts. If I then unplug the USB cable to the smoothstepper, it starts up, but reports another error: Could not write to USB chip with serial # ******************x.

If I connect just the BoB to the laptop using the parallel cable, everything works as it should

I am now totally lost

It sounds like you have a driver issue. I talked to someone the other day that had a glitch while installing the driver and he had to use the FTDI driver removal utility to completely remove the driver and reinstall it from scratch. There is a link to the driver uninstaller on the Warp9TD forum, take a look at this link: http://www.warp9td.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=33&func=view&id=3012&catid=7#3012

Also look in Mach at the plug-ins folder and make sure only one SmoothStepper plug-in is installed.

Jeff,

Thank you for the pointers. Sorry for the delays in replying, was caught up in other work

I tried uninstalling the driver as you suggested. It ran fine for a couple of hours and then went back to throwing the IO errors. I am at wits' end.

Sam.

Did you turn off the power saving settings for the USB root hubs?

Yes, I did.

Sorry please ignore I have managed to answer my own question.

Thanks

Hey all,

I know this is an old post, but I just solved my own IO issue and wanted to throw in my two bits for anyone still in need.

Long story short, my issue was related to the fact that I had the shielding from my servo and limit switch cables going through the ground on the Smoothstepper's breakout board (c25). In hindsight I guess it was easy to see how that could be messing up the USB data connection and therefor giving those dreaded errors.  Once I removed the ground lead from the board and connected it to the case (and therefor right to the mains) I was able to get clean operation without errors.

Hope this helps