Hello. First off. I love my machine, generally the only issues I’ve had have all been user error. Love the black box controller and the support of open builds. Just do not want to come off as negative So. I’m doing 3D cutting mainly. Long cuts. 3-5 hours. I’ve had many hours of trouble free cutting. But my last 3-4 have all lost the connection, port about half way through. It goes the the “connect” on control. Try to connect and it says access to port is denied. If I restart the machine it corrects the problem. I will say it’s getting colder here in AK. Relative humidity is low. I have had a few static shocks off my rails. Not sure if this means anything but wanted to mention it. my pc has all the power safe usb options correct per the open box setup any thoughts? Wondering about the “access denied” thing is?
I’ll add the following. I am running the Xtension limit switches. I also had a error a couple cuts back. Basically the machine crawled to a halt and router was doing short choppy cuts. I had posted on that one too. Has not happened again cpu is old. Might need to upgrade. Might be the issue. I don’t know
And old PC surely can be the root cause. But before upgrading, try a different USB cable and also a different USB port (avoid ones on front panel of PC) as it might be EMi
Peter. Will give that a try. Have another cut about an hour in. deleted all unused software. There was a lot. Also keeping it off WiFi. Can you start on a line of code half way through a cut??
Dang. Lol. This one lasted the longest then I drop. I have ferrolite plugs coming. But it just seems to odd to me that I’ll go for hours before dropping.........or is this a typical EMI issue??
What about dust......still looking at perfecting dust control but my system is bad. Good layer over everything. Lol. Just shop vacing after cutting.
Negative, as "before the line you want to start from" the gcode contains - Modal commands (that sets certain modes first) - Spindle/Offset/Positioning commands - other commands required to get the program to the point you want to start at Its very complicated, so you will have to edit gcode manually
Ferrites do wonders! (Video embedded below) It hard to say, it could be something non-EMI too, not ruling that out, but it is the more likely cause for the "access denied" Access denied is windows telling us we already have a lock on the port. But the port went away (briefly) due to hardware/drivers/emi/windows etc and we didnt yet loose the lock (it wasnt gone long enough or windows didnt do the cleanup properly), but when the port re-enumerated it was already a new instance (so we cannot just reconnect to it) More on ferrites
Well, I've seen more EMI issues with dust hoses running near electronics (dust particles moving against hose creates static electricity)
Well. I have enough ferrittes on about every cable I have. Got 2 packs. Lol. My usb cord has 5-6 on it. Used a different port. still disconnecting. I am running the dust collector. Dropped about 3 hours in. so kind of at my end here?? Still have the old machine running. So I guess that’s my next play?? I am eyeing basically a rebuilt dell optix from Best Buy. Inexpensive. About 250. any other thoughts before I jump that way? Or minimum cpu requirements.
This was the machine I was thinking about. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-r...rd-drive-black-silver/5710148.p?skuId=5710148
Just before you get new hardware, lets try using Platform - UGS (its a little less resource intensive) see if that helps
Well, didn’t want to learn a new platform. So just upgraded my computer. Needed to anyway so I figured it was time. Got a new HP Pavilion. Middle road. same issue so that was not it either. That sucked. This time control gave me an error code. I dumbly did not take a picture. basically something like GRBL Locked Out?? This time it did let me re-zero though? But dumped where it was at. Running again. Sure it will fail and I’ll take a pic of the error I’m on about 40 hours trying to cut one side of this part with all the fails. worth noting I have successfully completed 2 full cuts before I started getting this issue. Or about 30-40 hours of trouble free cutting. I guess I’ll try the other cutting program.
I was on about hour 4 of a 5.5 hour cut. So it is making it hours before dropping. That’s kind of odd to me too
Please do test with UGS Platform, if it still cuts out we already eliminated a lot of possible causes That said, did you remember to apply the USB Suspend setting when you got the new PC? OpenBuilds BlackBox 4X Documentation Couple hours in feels like Windows shutting down the port (power saving nonsense - great for PCs used for Excel, not so for machine controllers)
And just double checking, the job isnt maybe failing in the exact same spot? (ie that there may be a line of gcode that is corrupt at that point)
On other thought, the old machine, and the new one, both Laptops correct? If you wouldn't mind if we do some more tests to really get to the bottom of it - Download https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usblogview.zip (More details here USBLogView - Records the details of any USB device that is plugged or unplugged into your system) - Keep it running next time you do a test cut or real cut - When the port disconnects, lets see if UsbLogView tells us anything else thats interesting, or doesn't tell us, which can also be a clue... lets get some screenshots of it after an event If that doesn't give us clues to go by, How to capture a USB event trace with Logman - Windows drivers is also worth a shot, but little more advanced
Peter, thanks in advance. Both the machines are desktops. I did change the power settings on the new one. I do keep stopping in a similar spot. Never in the same spot though. Attached is the error that was popping up. So as not to change a bunch of stuff, and not ever figure out whats happening I'm going to try the following first. 1. Download the USB tracker, that's a great idea. 2. Post Process a new job. I just looked at the tool paths and settings. I did not have smoothing on! Or even set correctly. The new code is 2 megs VS the original 10! Thanks to this forum for the write-up on it. 3. Run it again. (might be towards the end of the week, traveling for work a few days) Figure if I (we) can get this one figured out, should be able to figure anything out (me) So I quit bugging you. If this errors out then download the other processor and do 2 & 3 above again. Actually pretty hopeful with the reduced file size it cleans it up. You may be asking why I'm continuing to run the same job,,,,just the material cost, I have a $300 dollar blank already fixtured up, and half cut. Leaving material for a finishing path, but don't want to waste it by moving it. My fixture is MDF and not sure I can set it in the same spot. Going to fix that in the future though.
The error just says Grbl is locked - probably because a command got mangled when the serial port / malformed GCODE put in alarm mode so when you reconnect its still in that mode to protect your machine/work/limbs. Just unlock it first, then continue (using the Abort button at the top right will clear the Grbl Alarm state for you)
Good ideas all round! I hate those issues that only show up on expensive material and only after a few hours! So hard to troubleshoot!
Well, success! I really think the size of the GCode was the issue. But now I’ve addressed my CPU. Way better than old one. Dust collection is up and running. And enough ferrite Beads to ward off EMI Thanks again. I’ll post a pic of my setup soon.
Yeah good hardware just helps take a lot of frustration away, you can even run CAM software/Fusion360/etc on it now. Glad you are sorted for now! If you get a chance, do upload one of the older files, i'll run it this side and see if theres any clues
Well dang. Back again. Flipped the part and I’m stopping again at about half way. Same cut file just flipped Peter. You mentioned being able to clear and start again?? You also mention an “abort”. Upper left hand? Nothing exists on my tool bar I can clear the alarm. But the resume button is grayed out??? Can you walk me through restarting after the alarm??
Clear the alarm so I can resume. Right now it wants to start all over. and Control will “white screen” on me fairly regularly. With my old computer and new one. If it’s on. And I’m using other programs. Task manager says it’s live. But not what happened with the last round of updates? What was “fixed”
Asking because this is a new issue. 2 months ago I was running 6 plus hour jobs. My first thought was emi because it’s cold now and humidity is low. Now I’m questioning platform. I’ll load USG after I hopefully finish this part
Sorry you didnt mention the two months ago history before. I assumed new user, old hardware. The familiar story. Grab an old version from github.com/OpenBuilds/OpenBuilds-CONTROL/releases and do some more testing, if you can prove version x-1 works and version X has an issue we can bisect the changes. In two months theres lots of changes (see OpenBuilds/OpenBuilds-CONTROL Changelog for a summary) so if you can track your problems down to a specific release it would help a lot too
Just wanted to update. But sure looks like all my problems above were EMI of some sort. I have grounded the chassis, the machine, and the vacuum hose. Running great!
