Unable To Connect To Makerbot 2X

[Joe Soap]

A few days ago I had a USB connection to my Makerbot 2X, thru which I was able to print.

Subsequently without changing anything that connection is lost, and I am unable to re-establish it. So I can't get a COM port and cannot print via USB.

Identifying (or changing) the USB port doesn't fix this - the port reports in Device Manager that it is unknown.

I got this working the other day by installing Makerbot Desktop. However de-installing and re-installing doesn't fix it.

Is there a common practice for dealing with something like this?

[Jetguy]

Yes, the basic "is it detected as a USB device when plugged in"

Turn on your speakers and turn up the volume.

Unplug the USB of the printer while powered and plug it into a known working USB port.

Does Windows Ding loudly when the USB cord is plugged in? Is so, is it the good ding- driver loaded, or the bad ding- oh crap, device unrecognized.

NO ding either means your USB cord is bad or the 8u2 USB to serial processor on the mainboard is dead (most likely) or in a rare attempt, you could attempt an AVR programmer to try and flash it.

Given the 8u2 AKA USB to serial IC is the most voltage sensitive and blows at ANYTHING over about 5.53V likely it's dead and the repair either way is a royal pain.

you are either looking at a replacement mainboard or a very difficult surface mount IC replacement- and then you still gotta flash the bare chip.

[Joe Soap]

Solved it. My 2X is not at fault.

Problem was getting the driver for associating the USB connection to a COM port on a new Windows 8.1 PC which I have built. It worked briefly several days ago, and not long after for reasons I don't understand it just stopped working and the driver disappeared from the landscape. Nothing I could do would restore that driver.

Yesterday I took the 2X to a Windows 7 PC, which I had also rebuilt on bare metal in recent days. Initially it also had issues getting the driver installed. But that changed when I plugged the 2X into a USB port on the PC front panel rather than the back panel.

I think this problem is due to Makerbot's USB driver which seems a bit sniffy when it comes to making the connection on different hardware. That driver seems like beta quality to me. Would be nice if there were a 3rd party alternative driver to take Makerbot out of the loop.

[Jetguy]

Nothing trick about the driver. More likely than not, you plugged into USB3 ports which are known to not be greatly compatible with USB V2 devices. On top of that, yes, Windows driver signing enforcement is a royal pain in the rear- so that's your OS.

 

Again, nothing wrong with the driver, it's straight up USB standards compatible. The only thing they did was modify this driver for the USB IDs assigned to them via the USB consortium http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/USBSerial

The 8u2 firmware is sourced from the same info.

 

You are barking up the wrong tree and making accusations you cannot backup.

[tramalot]

always had good luck with this brand, they come with their own driver disc

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4910446&CatId=511

On Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 5:51:31 AM UTC-4, Joe Soap wrote:

[Lassi Kinnunen]

nothing in the spec should make them not work with usb v2.   however, usb3 ports on many computers need drivers for the ports to be installed before they start to work... and the windows flavors that need signed drivers either need signed drivers or a reboot to unsigned driver installation mode(to install the unsigned arduino kind of drivers).

-lassi

[Rich Webb]

I thought this was a quote from Yogi Berra but turns out it was Al Einstein: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

My laptop's USB3 ports work great for most things. As I type they're each connected through a Prolific USB/serial to a breadboard to a synchro/digital converter board. They also work great with my ancient Intronix logic analyzer and my USB JTAG dongles. But they're not happy connecting to the Mightyboard clone board with RepG. It's just One of Those Things (TM). I can't explain it, I just work around it.

[Joe Soap]

Given the problems I had with maintaining a USB connection to my 2X, I just came across the following article:

http://microfabricator.com/blogs/view/id/54e438e56983c5316480205e/using-a-flashair-wifi-enabled-sdcard-with-your-3d-printer

Is there any reason why that wouldn't work?J

[adam paul]

Many people, myself included, use the flash air. It works well.