coolterm not sending all gcode

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  • July 17, 2012 at 7:15 pm #3341
    nmanousos
    Member

    has anyone else experienced this with very long gcode files? coolterm gets stuck on a “sending %” and never finishes sending all the gcode. As a result the operation stops part way in.

    July 17, 2012 at 11:39 pm #3342
    nmanousos
    Member

    after a bit of experimentation I found the limit where coolterm stops sending gcode is around 250 lines. Is there something I am doing wrong in the coolterm config?

    July 18, 2012 at 10:31 am #3343
    alden
    Member

    Questions, questions. What version of Coolterm are you using, and is it Mac or PC? have you enabled XON/XOFF in the coolterm dialog? What does your coolterm config look like? I assume you have or you would not have gotten that far. Can you post the file you are sending somehow – as a dropbox, maybe?

    July 18, 2012 at 1:13 pm #3344
    nmanousos
    Member

    Coolterm 1.4.1, MacOS. XON is enabled. I uploaded a zip with screenshots of my config and the gcode I am working with:
    http://argonrecords.com/cnc.zip

    The gcode file is cutting the teeth of a small watch movement gear.

    Thank you for looking into this!

    July 20, 2012 at 4:46 pm #3347
    nmanousos
    Member

    I tried via windows as well – got coolterm running, but it has the same issue – I can only send around 250 lines of gcode before it hangs.

    July 20, 2012 at 5:11 pm #3348
    nmanousos
    Member

    another symptom – even when reducing my gcode to less than 250 lines, I am unable to do feedholds. However, I am able to do feedholds when running the self tests. Maybe there is some gcode I am sending that is causing these issues? I am generating gcode using both inventorcam and aspire from vectric.

    July 20, 2012 at 6:28 pm #3349
    roberlin
    Member

    I had the same problem. It was also dropping some characters when I sent smaller files.
    Fixed it by going to the connection options and adding a transmit delay of 100 after each line and 3 (I forget the exact number… somewhere between 3 and 6 I think) after each character.

    July 20, 2012 at 11:28 pm #3350
    nmanousos
    Member

    roberlin – thanks for the tip. It seems to help a bit, but not quite 100%. Isn’t this what XON/XOFF is supposed to take care of anyways?

    It looks like things are working using tgFX alpha, but not from coolterm

    July 21, 2012 at 10:51 am #3352
    roberlin
    Member

    Well, it was dropping characters when I sent maybe a 20 line file that consisted only of changes to settings and no gcode.
    I sort of thought (may be off base) that such commands would never trigger an XOFF since they don’t fill the gcode buffer.

    Regardless the problem reappeared for me today after being “fixed” for a couple of weeks, so you are right the delay does not seem to be a cure.

    I will give tgFX a shot.

    July 21, 2012 at 11:38 am #3353
    nmanousos
    Member

    Ah – for settings, maybe you were running into this issue:

    “CAVEAT: At the current time because of various limitations of the Xmega errata we recommend pausing transmission for at least 30 milliseconds after each line containing a $ command. This gives the system enough time to persist the data to EEPROM, during which time the system cannot receive new serial input. We are working on a workaround to this issue.”

    From this page: https://www.synthetos.com/wiki/index.php?title=TinyG:Configuring

    I did some more tests – tgFX is definitely working. Still cannot get coolterm to work.

    July 21, 2012 at 6:24 pm #3354
    nmanousos
    Member

    I attempted a full job with tgFX today – it stopped halfway through. Seemed like a similar stopping point I waas seeing using coolterm. Has anyone been able to run a job that contains more than 500 lines of gcode?

    July 21, 2012 at 8:40 pm #3355
    alden
    Member

    I’m just starting to run your file now. I have run a lot of files over 500 lines of Gcode. Let’s see what’s going on here. A few questions.

    – Is this in Inches on mm? Looks to be in inches but I’m not sure. I added a G20. If it’s in inches the initial Z lift of 10 inches is too high for my machine. I modified it. [UPDATED] I guess it’s mm as it’s a small watch movement. I seem to be drawing a Flava Flav sized watch. I’ll change to mm.

    -Do you use the G43 tool offset? TinyG does not support this command. No harm done, as long as you don,t need it.

    -The feed rates are very very slow. I see F1 and F2 being used. Is this what you have intended?

    – What TinyG build are you running? Should be a number like 338.12

    – What line number does ti stop on?

     

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by alden.
    • This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by alden.
    • This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by alden.
    • This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by alden.
    July 21, 2012 at 9:00 pm #3361
    nmanousos
    Member

    Alden,

    Thanks for taking a look.

    The project is in mm, sorry – I should have put a g21 in there.

    I don’t use the g43 offset.

    The feed rates are slow in purpose. I’m using a 0.1mm endmill in brass (and eventually steel) so I need to go very slow in order to get a good finish and not snap the tool.

    I am running TinyG build: 338.11

    I don’t know what line # it stops on – but it’s roughly 1/4 of the way through. It cuts about a 1/4 of the teeth and then stops. I also can’t tell which line # it stops on because coolterm is crashing – the “sending text file” indicator never goes away and I have to force quit the application.

    My guess is that it’s a flow control issue – the red light near the usb connector goes on immediately and never turns off, and never flashes tx/rx.

    Thank you again for looking into this – I really appreciate it.

    Nick

    July 21, 2012 at 9:15 pm #3362
    alden
    Member

    I just made it through the entire file very quickly by setting the feed rates to F100 and F200. No crashes. It sounds like a flow control problem with XON/XOFF. Let me compare your Coolterm settings to mine. I’ll update. I’m using this forum more like an Instant messaging system.

    UPDATE: Your coolterm serial settings show a Bluetooth serial port. This can;t be right. Have you installed the FTDI drivers? I ahve to beleive so, otherwise how would it work at all?

    Interesting. You are running Coolterm 1.4.1 build 162. I am running 1.4.0b2 build 142. I wonder if something broke in the mean time? I worked with Roger to get this right, and even sent him a TinyG setup a year or so back. Maybe things went sideways? If you can still get the oder builds perhaps you could try that. I may try the current build, but not until I figure out how to recover to old one first in case it doesn’t work.

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by alden.
    July 21, 2012 at 9:22 pm #3364
    nmanousos
    Member

    Thanks. Could it be a timing issue also? Have you run jobs that take over an hour to complete? This one takes so long because of the very low feed rate.

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