Skynet Got Me Today

[Nicolas Silva]

odd coincedence but I was watching Terminator 2 and running a job at the same time
and on the 2nd pass of the job the laser decided to run a line from the lower left hand corner to the upper right
hand corner across the job and then two horizontal lines across the length of the job which completely
ruined the job. Didn't do it on the first pass. There may be something to this 'rise of the machines' thing.
a reboot later and it all worked out.

[Bert Kemp]

So How many times have you watched T-2 I've lost count LOL

[Keith Colson]

MY Universal does odd things too. About every couple of weeks it just stops mid job and I can only correct it with a reboot on the PC.

Cheers
Keith

[Kev Williams]

data transfer errors. Hate when that happens. My laser's do that occasionally. So do my other engravers. This just happened yesterday, instead of the tool picking up and going to the next part on the right, it just stayed down and engraved a straight line left to infinity (or the limit switch, whichever comes first! ;) )
302043

[Bill George]

Do you have someone running a welder, Ham or CB type radio transmitter near by? Could be RFI or EMI either on the power line or someone near you with an electronic device.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I used to have this problem regularly with my LS100. It was a bearing issue. Since I've replaced the bearing and rail I haven't had a problem and that's about 3-4 years.

[Keith Colson]

I had it happen just now, mid way through engraving a piece of maple darn it. I re ran the job with the lid ajar and then dropped it at the right time, I got a tiny black line in the art that I can get away with.

It happened exactly when I pushed my garage door remote to let a customer in hrmmmm. Ross my bearings on the x axis are a bit noisey so I will replace them as a matter of course and see if it helps.

Cheers
Keith

[Keith Colson]

Since I have been running my new air compressor that has much lower ripple current I have not seen this issue reoccur. Fingers crossed the issue is fixed.

[Keith Colson]

Well it got me again today, the machine locked up exactly when the compressor cycled on, so I am pretty sure that it happens when you get the voltage drop due to the compressor starting up.

If I get ambitious I will pull the power-supply apart and check/replace the electrolytic capacitors. At least I know the cause now.

[Bill George]

Any chance to put the laser on another circuit? You might also try a power strip with the surge protection and filtering, might need to spend a little more to get an industrial rated one. I have a heavy duty one on mine and I would have to go out and get the brand and model. I see you are an electronics person, so maybe you know about adding bypass capacitors to take any RF to ground.

The last more expensive solution is running the laser off a UPS system.

[John Noell]

The last more expensive solution is running the laser off a UPS system. I looked at UPS cost and went with a much less expensive APC voltage regulator. (Our electric power is very unstable.) I was very happy with the regulator.

[Bill George]

I looked at UPS cost and went with a much less expensive APC voltage regulator. (Our electric power is very unstable.) I was very happy with the regulator.

Are you folks on diesel generators for the entire island or do you have your own solar / wind set up off a battery bank and invertors?

[David Somers]

Bill,

John can update me if I am not current....but I believe Fiji has a very modest Hydro generation setup that I think came on line in 2012 or 2013? They also have a bit of wind and a bit of biomass generated by burning the scraps from timber and sugar production. Otherwise they are on diesel generators. And if I remember right, pretty old ones.

John.....don't feel bad. It could be worse. You could be in Saipan (commonwealth of the marianas) where they are almost 100% diesel, running generators that date back to the German occupation of the islands (seriously) and are constantly in arrears on their payment for fuel to the point where the oil companies will only take cash now for delivery. They anchor a fuel tanker off the coast (to taunt them I think) and wait till someone gives them hard currency for the fuel. So the island has longgggggg rolling blackouts. Almost all businesses and hotels and the National Park unit I served there have generators to take them through these long blackouts. If you are a homeowner with limited $$ resources you are simply up a creek without a paddle. Amazing way to run a country. Hopefully Fiji is a bit more stable than that.

Dave

[Kevin L. Waldron]

Keith,

Problem with the Universal machine will be USB connection....... 1) it's possible your USB card or mother board 0n the computer are getting weak when they get hot, 2) you might also try a power assisted USB 3) as mentioned the power surge on the same circuit etc. could also cause a micro second off/on just enough for the ULS to loose the USB two way communications...... ( We have two Universal and very familiar with the problem. At one point the only cure was a new internal powered USB Card)

Blessings,

Kevin

[Michael Kowalczyk]

I'llllllll beeeee backkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!

[Keith Colson]

Just an update on this as it is still happening. I tried using my laptop to do a 2 hour job that would normally fail and it ran straight through. This indicates it is my PC for the laser cutter at fault. Disabling the driver "allow the computer to turn this device off to save power" did not help as I have been told this is a common issue.

My friend mentioned my virus checker bitdefender could be the culprit so I have removed that and will see if I get any luck and report back.

Cheers
Keith

[Kev Williams]

I've picked up a ghost in the machine lately--

My older 5000XT engraver is driven by a Gravo EP module, the module is driven from my 'main' PC. Those, like most of my machines, I turn on & off at the breaker box.

My computers I typically hibernate.

After turning on the machines, out of the blue even while the computer is hibernated, it will send data thru the serial cable to the EP module, and the XT's motor will start and the spindle head starts going for who-know-where.

That's a little disconcerting....

[Dan Hintz]

Just an update on this as it is still happening. I tried using my laptop to do a 2 hour job that would normally fail and it ran straight through. This indicates it is my PC for the laser cutter at fault. Disabling the driver "allow the computer to turn this device off to save power" did not help as I have been told this is a common issue.

My friend mentioned my virus checker bitdefender could be the culprit so I have removed that and will see if I get any luck and report back.

Cheers
Keith

I would look at grounding... laptops are a good way to isolate ground from your comms path, and when that happens, problems tend to appear/disappear.

[Keith Colson]

Good point Dan, I thought exactly the same thing. Before I blamed the PC I got my meter out and my laptop is of the grounded variety.

Cheers
Keith

[Dan Hintz]

Good point Dan, I thought exactly the same thing. Before I blamed the PC I got my meter out and my laptop is of the grounded variety.

Cheers
Keith

The trick is where things are grounded. Is the machine is getting its comms ground through the controlling PC or through it's own grounding star? When you introduce a laptop, the comms ground becomes isolated and comms tend to suddenly begin working... when that happens, I started separating the cable ground, and the debug session really begins. It's not fun, it's tedious, and it cannot be solved by simply verifying everything is "grounded".

[Michael Kowalczyk]

nicolas listen very carefully...... I"LLLLLLLLL BEEEEEEEEE BACK

[Keith Colson]

The problem appears to be a bug in Win7. There is a feature called "USB selective suspend" under the advanced power options. Reading up on it shows that by default it "can" disconnect any USB port that has been idle longer than 10 seconds. The bug is, it may not automatically start up again when it should.

I had a job that is 10mm acrylic letters. Each letter takes about 40 seconds. More than enough time for the USB port to suspend before the next pack of info is sent to the laser. This job failed 3 times in a row. After disabling selective suspend the job has run 6 times with no issues.

I did adjust a few other settings that I would recommend too. Under device manager in the USB hub I unchecked "let windows turn this off to save power" In the advanced power settings I also disabled the PCI express power management too.

Took me a while but I got there haha.

Cheers
Keith

[Dan Hintz]

Was it failing in the same place every time? If so, I would have suspected a bad file or some such issue... glad you found it, though.

[Keith Colson]

It failed in random places, no regularity to the error at all, the interesting thing was, when I cleared off a lot of the PC's bloatware, the machine got faster and the fault occurred more. Its the first time a faster machine made something worse for me.

Today was a lovely day. I was engraving big jobs, like full bed size and they would complete continuously with no issues. It is a great weight off my shoulders as I was losing a lot of time restarting things and some jobs I was throwing away material too.

All due to one little check box in the power settings!

Cheers
Keith