Turned on my Blackbox today and went through the Wizard to surface my spoilboard. I set all the paremeters and jogged the spindle to the correct position and it would not run. I got the message that there was no USB/ serial port where it normally says COM3, I could not connect? Since then no matter what i do, restart blackbox, change USB lead etc it still says no USB? The Blackbox works on my Interface but not the USB to laptop. Ive tried rebooting the laptop but still can not connect I plugged a pen drive into the laptop and it finds that ok
Sounds as though you "lost" your usb drivers (corrupted, Windows update??). docs:blackbox:install-drivers [OpenBuilds Documentation] Alex.
Hi Alex, it suddenly appeared again after spending all night on it... So I thought id give it another go and set up the surfacing wizard again, pressed run and nothing. The machine did not run and spindle did not start. I did notice that suddenly there were 391 jobs ? I deleted the current one and it went down to 390 jobs? thanks for reply
What kind of spindle do you have? And is it wired as per docs.openbuilds.com? Incorrectly wired spindles can cause EMI or even damage controllers. Post some pics of your wiring if you'd like us to help check
Hi its a Chinese 800 watt, water cooled spindle. All VFD cables are screened and run up the extractor hose to the VFD, none running in the drag chain. Its wired from the Blackbox the 0-10v to the VFD. It was working fine and was able to control the spindle speed through the GRBL files with each job plus using control to turn it on and off. When I was using the Interface a few nights ago it started having a bit of a fit! Random things lighting up and movement etc. I may unplug the Interface and see what happens just using my laptop and control. I thought of running the surfacing wizard without my spindle/VFD turned on. I would of course make the settings so the zero of my z axis is in mid air to see if it will try to surface my spoilboard, just the movements and not put 391 jobs into control. Will it try to run the job without the spindle turned on? I assume there is no feedback from the spindle to Blackbox ? thanks again
That is a good indication of EMI coming off the spindle/VFD: See docs:blackbox:faq-emi [OpenBuilds Documentation] Capacitive touch buttons dislikes a lot of interference. Check spindle Earthing and the other tips in the link above Did the USB disconnect right after the spindle started? If so, also see the link above What do you mean by this? Yes its a standard thing you can do. Zero Z up and away from the spoilboard to prevent a crash and run it. Called "running an aircut"
When the USB disappeared, i looked on Control and it said I had 391 jobs in the queue? Id only added the 1 surfacing job
No, the Serial Queue shows lines of gcode remaining on the current job. See the GCODE editor tab, the job you loaded has 300+ lines of gcode. USB probably disconnected because of EMI (see above) and of course the queue can't keep moving.
oh thanks for clearing that up..I will try an air cut tonight unplugging the Interface from the Blackbox. Will remove the cable too instead of just the actual Interface. I've ordered a high quality USB lead and a pack of ferrite cores to see if that makes a difference
Address the source (VFD) of the interference - rather than trying to shield every possible victim. If the VFD/spindle is putting out abnormal amounts of EMI there is a problem with its Earthing or wires too close to signal/lowvoltage wiring.
