InPhase

What I have labeled there is the tail I was referring to earlier. If I run this under Mach3 on my machine or someone else’s it is fine. If I run it under Coolterm using the dev branch with TinyG it is fine.

If I run it under edge or master branch using Coolterm or tgFX, I get what you see in that picture. And I mean identically. At first I thought I had a mechanical issue. Then I checked for electrical problems with grounding and shielding. Then I changed the type of gcode the design software produced. Then I scanned the gcode line by line looking for a problem.

Other gcode files also run somewhat askew as well, but that Ford logo became my default test file. This is the result from dev branch:

• This reply was modified 11 years, 1 month ago by InPhase.

Well, I tell you, I have had the most amazing luck. Last night I heard one tiny rumble of thunder and woke this morning to find my blueray player and cable box dead as well as the surge protector they are plugged into. And out in the shop, the computer and TinyG are smoked too! LOL! But I’m an optimist.

To answer your questions, I first spot trouble around line 6800. There is a triangular island of material beneath the “r” and “d” that the machine rapids over to clear away. It doesn’t completely get it all and this is the first sign. Soon afterwards it moves over to begin finishing the letter outline and it just plows right into the tail coming off the left side of the letter “F” and it only gets worse from there. Coolterm does the same.

You won’t be able to see this with the motors inhibited because the screen simulation is fine. But the actual workpiece is pure carnage. As far as using dev, I understood the risk. I bought a $129 driver that wouldn’t run in any way but dev, so I took a chance. Now here I sit, with no driver and no computer to push it with LOL!

I have another computer I can set up, I just need to get another board now.

So, I managed to slog my way through making the changes to system.h and making a new hex file. What an experience that was. Anyway, the motor outputs don’t seem to be floating. Motor 1 is still enabled all the time. And the rest of them seem to be pulled low.

Short of cutting the traces on the board or buying something else to drive my machine, what else can I do, why hasn’t the system.h change been effective?

You guys are great. I don’t want to pursue this unless I absolutely have to. I drew a circuit diagram last night and gathered the parts I will need to put it together, but I want to give 380.06 a shot and see if it corrects the minor problems I’m having with the dev branch and the major problems I had with 380.05.

So, simply disabling the motors ($md) won’t be sufficient for backfeeding the drivers with an external signal? My adapter circuit design includes provisions to limit the signal voltage from the PC to 3.3 V. Basically, the parallel port delivers power and signal to a couple of Schmitt trigger hex inverters, which then switch transistors powered by the 3.3 V output of the TG to deliver signals to the 8818’s through the vias on the board.

BUT… if the $md command isn’t going to cut it, then I’m stuck because I have 0 knowledge of how to make the appropriate changes to the code. I’m praying that the 380.06 edge and new tgFX build do the trick.

BTW Alden, were you able to reproduce the carnage I had in the gcode I sent you?

• This reply was modified 11 years, 1 month ago by InPhase.

Yeah, Mac, I have an Android, but the app doesn’t work with the v8 board yet. Matthew Stock (the app developer) and I have been corresponding about that issue and it’s being worked on.

Alden, thanks for the response. Tonight I discovered that the problem definitely isn’t tgFX, but is in fact in the firmware. When using either the master or edge version of the firmware the machine will produce some rather undesirable effects. And this occurs when using tgFX and Coolterm to send the file.

However, using the dev version 0.97 build 392.70, the code will run perfect. BUT only with Coolterm. tgFX will not pull data from the board at all. So whatever you did in the dev version of the firmware as far as code execution is great. I will be able to use it this way for now. It would be great to have a functional GUI, but I understand it is a work-in-progress. I have attached some pics to demonstrate the effect of the master and dev firmware.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by InPhase.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by InPhase.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by InPhase.