Laser Cutter Connectivity Troubleshooting

23 views
Skip to first unread message

Conor Maher

unread,
Apr 14, 2018, 12:52:31 AM4/14/18
to Connected Community HackerSpace
Hi Guys,

I noticed its hard to get a reliable connection to the Laser Cutter. When I was initially on-boarded it was mentioned that it can have trouble establishing a connection. Last night it went from connecting after 1-2 attempts and completing a small job. To not connecting at all / losing connection during the cutting process. A much shorter (30cm) "gold plated" USB cable seems to have helped slightly so I thought it could have been a noise / signal strength issue but even then I could not complete a successful cut later in the evening. I tried resetting the laptop, power cycling the cutter different ports etc.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is it Arduino powered? Can I talk to it over a console just to test basic connectivity etc? 

Today I will try connect to it with another laptop just to rule that out. I certainly don't want to do anything that could make it worse!

Thanks!

Conor

Conor Maher

unread,
Apr 14, 2018, 5:49:55 AM4/14/18
to Connected Community HackerSpace
Ok good news. 

Somebody ran a cut this morning without issue, I then ran a test cut and it worked but subsequently disconnected and I couldn't connect again.

I have swapped to the laptop that was connected to "Laser Cutter V2" and it seems to be able to establish a serial connection to Marlin much much faster. I've been running some test cuts in card without issue. I'm not sure if its some kind of IRQ / port conflict on the other machine. 

Conor

Stuart Young

unread,
Apr 14, 2018, 6:02:16 AM4/14/18
to CCHS
All the laptops are second hand, so it's possible that the issue could be a simple failure (like a bad USB connector or a cracked solder joint or PCB).

Though you did say you tested with a different port...

Did you try on battery or with a different PSU? Arduinos and ground loops are quite a common occurrence (USB ground, DC ground and AC earth should never be treated as the same thing). At a minimum this can cause data interference. At its worst, it can lead to the USB cord heating up due to the current flow.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Connected Community HackerSpace" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to connected-community-h...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to connected-commu...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/connected-community-hackerspace/cfe515dd-6028-41f7-a195-a46ed9132460%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Conor Maher

unread,
Apr 14, 2018, 6:56:58 AM4/14/18
to Connected Community HackerSpace
Interesting Stuart. I did try with the laptop AC power disconnected. It seems to be reliably running on the original laptop now .. Intermittent problems are the hardest to debug :)

I did compare the COM settings on both machines.

Laptop 1 (the main laptop for this machine) 

has v1.0.0.0 of the Arduino driver.

Laptop 2 (for laser cutter V2)
 
has a much newer v1.2.3.0 driver
It also has FIFO buffers enabled

I can't see advanced settings on laptop 1 as it needs admin privileges.

Its also totally anecdotal that the connection is more reliable on the other machine but I was able to complete several long cuts without interruption where as last night on laptop1 cuts would fail at various points in the gcode



On Saturday, 14 April 2018 20:02:16 UTC+10, Cefiar wrote:
All the laptops are second hand, so it's possible that the issue could be a simple failure (like a bad USB connector or a cracked solder joint or PCB).

Though you did say you tested with a different port...

Did you try on battery or with a different PSU? Arduinos and ground loops are quite a common occurrence (USB ground, DC ground and AC earth should never be treated as the same thing). At a minimum this can cause data interference. At its worst, it can lead to the USB cord heating up due to the current flow.

On Sat, 14 Apr. 2018, 19:49 Conor Maher, <conzy...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok good news. 

Somebody ran a cut this morning without issue, I then ran a test cut and it worked but subsequently disconnected and I couldn't connect again.

I have swapped to the laptop that was connected to "Laser Cutter V2" and it seems to be able to establish a serial connection to Marlin much much faster. I've been running some test cuts in card without issue. I'm not sure if its some kind of IRQ / port conflict on the other machine. 

Conor

On Saturday, 14 April 2018 14:52:31 UTC+10, Conor Maher wrote:
Hi Guys,

I noticed its hard to get a reliable connection to the Laser Cutter. When I was initially on-boarded it was mentioned that it can have trouble establishing a connection. Last night it went from connecting after 1-2 attempts and completing a small job. To not connecting at all / losing connection during the cutting process. A much shorter (30cm) "gold plated" USB cable seems to have helped slightly so I thought it could have been a noise / signal strength issue but even then I could not complete a successful cut later in the evening. I tried resetting the laptop, power cycling the cutter different ports etc.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is it Arduino powered? Can I talk to it over a console just to test basic connectivity etc? 

Today I will try connect to it with another laptop just to rule that out. I certainly don't want to do anything that could make it worse!

Thanks!

Conor

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Connected Community HackerSpace" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to connected-community-hackerspace+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to connected-community-hacke...@googlegroups.com.

Conor Maher

unread,
Apr 23, 2018, 7:12:56 AM4/23/18
to Connected Community HackerSpace
After some connectivity issues Saturday afternoon. Myself and John had literally hours of successful cuts Saturday night without issue.

I noticed the 80mm fan is no longer working (or its temperature controlled) I had the access panel open all night. Thats the only variable that has changed. But using the infra red thermometer nothing was particularly warm in there.

tubular

unread,
Apr 23, 2018, 7:37:43 PM4/23/18
to Connected Community HackerSpace
I had a successful night on the blue laser cutter last night.   Initially, the duct fan was switched off at the power block but I soon realised that.  

While cutting on blue I watched the black laser and noted the flow was healthy and in the range 1.3 to 2, rather than 0 to 1 like the previous week.   The water cooler sometimes works too well and drives the temperature down quite low - wondering if this is what's going on with the flow?   Really chilled water running at reduced flow for whatever reason? 

The blue cutter laptop with usb cable running via the docking station was something else different.  

Only thing I had was a little bit of ghost second beam over the right hand side of the blue cutter. 

I've restocked the 3mm MDF.  I'll get some white 2mm acrylic in as requested, any other requests while we're at it? 

Lachlan 



Conor Maher

unread,
Apr 23, 2018, 7:49:16 PM4/23/18
to connected-commu...@googlegroups.com
Thats great to hear.

I would like some transparent dark grey or some solid black or white in 3mm if possible

Conor



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Connected Community HackerSpace" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to connected-community-h...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to connected-commu...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/connected-community-hackerspace/d271b9d1-71a1-4659-b5ff-51fe03bca030%40googlegroups.com.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages