TinyG worked great, now its spotty

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  • March 9, 2015 at 4:47 pm #7516
    Rural
    Member

    I’ve retrofitted an old Router Master with a TinyG. Using my own laptop, which runs Linux, everything seemed to work. Got all the axes set appropriately, figured out an appropriate maximum speed for each axis, and even ran some jobs under ChiliPeppr.

    Then today, I began setting everything up on the owner’s Windows 7 PC. Suddenly, things have started to get interesting, but the problems seem to be with both the Windows PC and my Linux laptop. On both machines, I’ve loaded up Chilipeppr, jogged around a bit, but when I zero out the machine before starting a job, it is like it severs the connection to TinyG.

    Actually, playing around with it a bit more, it doesn’t take long before TinyG stops accepting commands… No. That’s not it. It’s like the machine is constantly rezeroing itself. So I can only move in the positive direction. I’ll play with this a bit more and see if I can narrow down what triggers the behaviour, but it seems like it is either changing the units between mm and inches (G20 or G21) or zeroing out one or more axes.

    Any suggestions are welcome.

    March 9, 2015 at 4:53 pm #7517
    Rural
    Member

    That bit about it only moving in the positive direction was my mistake. But it still seems to lose its connection on the Windows machine after a bit of jogging. Give me a few minutes to explore this a bit more fully.

    March 9, 2015 at 5:16 pm #7518
    Rural
    Member

    At this point, I think it was just dust in a USB port, but I’m still a little nervous that it was something else. Time will tell.

    March 10, 2015 at 6:18 am #7519
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    It would be helpful(should this behavior continue)if you describe your setup a bit more.
    You have mentioned Linux, Win7 and Chilipeppr.
    What fw is running on tinyG?
    We’ll assume you are using a current Chilippr by running with Force refresh Mode

    What release of serial-poort-json-server?
    Does spjs run on the Linux or Windows computers , or separately?
    If separately, on what sort of computer?
    What browsers do you use in Windows and Linux?

    March 11, 2015 at 5:57 pm #7520
    jlauer
    Member

    I would recommend you try the new spjs version 1.80 published last night. It likely fixes your issue.

    March 11, 2015 at 8:17 pm #7521
    Rural
    Member

    Sorry for the delay, but I was helping shear sheep yesterday. (No. I’m not kidding.)

    I did my initial testing under Linux (Ubuntu 14.04). Whenever I have issues, the Linux machine gets used for trouble-shooting. Otherwise, a Windows 7 PC controls the TinyG. Can’t check the serial-port-json-server at the moment, but I downloaded it on March 9th, so… Probably 1.79.

    The good news is that we did a successful run on a reasonably complicated job. We actually used TGFX. But before the successful cut, after several dry runs, we did a pass to score the waste board. During that run all motion stopped mid-job. The TinyG was unresponsive to console commands, TGFX wouldn’t disconnect, restarting TGFX didn’t help as it wouldn’t connect to the TinyG. We ended up power-cycling the TinyG (and external drivers). After using some compressed air to clear out all the USB connections, and hooking it back up, we successfully ran a couple air-jobs, and then the actual job, without problems. But with this sort of intermittent failure, I’m still nervous.

    Next week, we’re going to attempt a job that will require repeatedly running a job. That will be a good test, and provide opportunities for potential fixes. I’ll try ChiliPeppr again too, with everything as up-to-date as possible.

    March 13, 2015 at 1:49 pm #7533
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    Well, you call yourself Rural, so sheep shear is appropriate.
    A bit tough on the ‘victims’ this time of year, but I’m sure you have a plan.

    What tinyG FW are you currently running?
    What version of tgFX are you running?
    Running from Linux or Windows7?
    A problem you will face sooner or later is that the last release of tgFX was in the 435.10 firmware time period, I believe. Improvements contiue in the buffer and queue management FW, tgFX will fall further and further behind.

    FYI, back in the days I ran tgFX and tinyG, each time I ran a new job or even reran a loaded job, I started by resetting tinyG and tgFX and reloading from scratch. It eliminated some issue like yours.

    March 16, 2015 at 12:42 pm #7546
    Rural
    Member

    I’ll be sitting in front of the machine in a few hours and can answer all questions at that point. But before changing anything, I’ll use tgFX to do a couple of air runs of the job we ran on the 11th, just to see if I can get everything bunged up again. Then I’ll upgrade to the latest versions of the firmware, Chilipeppr, Chilipeppr’s serial port server, and give it a again.

    At this point, I am pretty sure that we will be making the switch to Chilipeppr. The only thing holding me back was jogging issues, and a troublesome version of the serial port server, but those issues look to be resolved.

    March 16, 2015 at 6:14 pm #7547
    Rural
    Member

    Believe it or not, shearing actually that stressful on the sheep. If they are held right, they just relax. I didn’t believe it until I witnessed it first hand. But I digress.

    The TinyG is running FW 435.10.
    tgFX is the latest (ie. last) version from GitHub. But I’m definitely moving away from it.
    I had the lock-up problem mostly under Windows 7 running tgFX. I may have had the same issue under Linux, but now that I’ve looked at it some more, I’m no longer sure. If it was happening, it might have been the serial-port-json-server issue.

    I here you on tgFX getting stale. Just a matter of time.

    March 19, 2015 at 1:23 pm #7557
    Rural
    Member

    I think most of my issues were due to a bad USB extension cable. I can’t say for sure yet, but I do know that using my Linux laptop which can be moved close enough to the machine that the extension cable isn’t needed, I’ve been able to jog around and run air jobs for quite a while with no issues. Moving back to the Windows machine results in issues.

    I suppose it could be an FTDI driver issue as well.

    March 19, 2015 at 5:52 pm #7559
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    USB cables have been know to become intermittent in this environment, a lot more plugging and unplugging typically going on.

    I suggest to move your tinyG up to current Edge, fw 440.14.Many bug fixes since 435.10, and power management fully implemented see:

    March 20, 2015 at 9:43 am #7560
    Rural
    Member

    The machine’s owner dug into his box of miscellaneous computer cables and found a USB A-B cable of just the right length. We plugged it in restarted TinyG. It jogged around fine. Ran half-a-dozen air jobs successfully. Ran a real job successfully. Ran a bunch more air jobs with no issues.

    So it all came down to a bad cable. Nice.

    440.14 is on the TinyG now. Chilipeppr and SPJS are the latest versions too.

    The owner is very happy with the quality of the cut. I think his machine was running without micro-stepping before where we’re at quarter stepping.

    He’s a little apprehensive about the TinyG and Chilipeppr being…more tightly linked to the hobbyist market than the manufacturing market. He is definitely oriented towards production and wants production-oriented features. But now that things are cutting, he’s pretty happy.

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