EZCad dongle not found error

[Melody York]

I bought a 20w Chinese fiber laser off eBay last week, and am having issues getting past the dongle not found error.

The software they sent is EZCad2.14.10. I couldn’t get it to work on the Windows 10 computer I hoped to use, but I get the same error on a Windows 8 machine I tried. Both computers are 64 bit, but they sent 64 bit drivers so you’d think it works.

I’ve installed the driver via the device manager as per the video they sent with the software.

I powered the machine on before trying to open the software.

Is there anything else obvious I could be missing?

[Kev Williams]

2.14.10 runs okay on my 32bit WinXP's, my 32bit Win7's, my 64bit Win7, and surprisingly, even on my 64bit win10 laptop before I threw it in the grandkids's toybox...

Be sure the machine is fired up before starting the program, and make sure your USB cable is in good condition, and that it's making connection with the computer...

[Melody York]

2.14.10 runs okay on my 32bit WinXP's, my 32bit Win7's, my 64bit Win7, and surprisingly, even on my 64bit win10 laptop before I threw it in the grandkids's toybox...

Be sure the machine is fired up before starting the program, and make sure your USB cable is in good condition, and that it's making connection with the computer...

That's where I'm puzzled. I've had it fired up each time, and have traded out the USB cable to see if thats the problem. It appears in the Device Manager as well.

[Kev Williams]

Ok, you mention you installed a driver-- I'm thinking that's your problem, as version 2-10-14 doesn't require loading a driver, while older version do (how much older, I wouldn't know!)

So go into your device manager, locate the driver/device, and uninstall it, or at least disable it- My thought is the program is looking for a controller for that driver, which doesn't exist...

then--

unplug the USB cable-
turn up the volume on your computer so you can hear the "connected" / "disconnected" Windows sounds-
Turn on the MACHINE only-
plug in the cable-- when you do, you should hear the 'connect' sound- if so,
unplug the cable-- you should hear the 'disconnect' sound...
If no sounds, either the machine's not connecting, or the sounds aren't turned on-

If sounds are good, fire up the EzCad program...

With any luck it should load and go...

[Melody York]

Ok, you mention you installed a driver-- I'm thinking that's your problem, as version 2-10-14 doesn't require loading a driver, while older version do (how much older, I wouldn't know!)

So go into your device manager, locate the driver/device, and uninstall it, or at least disable it- My thought is the program is looking for a controller for that driver, which doesn't exist...

then--

unplug the USB cable-
turn up the volume on your computer so you can hear the "connected" / "disconnected" Windows sounds-
Turn on the MACHINE only-
plug in the cable-- when you do, you should hear the 'connect' sound- if so,
unplug the cable-- you should hear the 'disconnect' sound...
If no sounds, either the machine's not connecting, or the sounds aren't turned on-

If sounds are good, fire up the EzCad program...

With any luck it should load and go...

Well, I got the noises, so the machine is connecting, but I'm still getting the no dongle error.

I'm starting to see something about 32 bit Windows - have you heard that? All the computers I've tried are 64 bit.

[James Minick]

I run 2.14.10 on 64bit Win 10.
I installed the LMCUSB.sys driver set.
Small enough to email.
The driver is Intel/AMD specific.

[Kev Williams]

As I noted above, I have this program working fine on XP 32 bit, Vista 32 bit (forgot that one but yeah), 7 32 bit and 7 64 bit...

As to driver files, this version of EzCad has them run automatically, and they do have drivers for 32 and 64 bit machines.

The entire program as loaded on a computer is very simple. I just checked my XP, my Vista, my 7 laptop -- all 32 bit, and my 'main' computer, which is a 64 bit win7-- all of the program files are identical on each computer- since the text on the Vista laptop is easiest to read, I used it for these pics...

-this is the entire 'program' root directory. Only 3 folders, the main EzCad folder,
and the Win32 and Win64 folders, which are the drivers...
ezfolders.jpg

clicking on the EzCad folder brings up 5 folders and 23 other files.
The folders contain only basic info, Font and Language info, the PARAM folder contains machine and user parameters,
Plug is the various program plugins, and the Res folder is an icon folder. None of the remaining files are drivers, although
the J8 is a program, something to do with passwords and the dongle, but not sure what? There's also the main program
file, and a 'correction' program, which I've never had a use for...
ecadfolder.jpg

Here I've opened the Win32 folder, which contains another Win folder that I opened, revealing the driver setup information,
which I opened in Notepad, the other files are typical program files. If you open YOUR driver setup information file, you find
it's quite long, and all in 'driver speak'...
ezdriver.jpg

Since there's no actual driver setup PROGRAM folders or files, it stands to reason that the drivers are loaded automatically by the main EzCad program. What I DON'T know, is if the drivers files are loaded only once, and saved like most drivers, or if they're loaded each time the program runs as part of the security measures?

In summary, I have 2 lasers that run this program, and I have the program on 5 computers, all of which I've never 'personally' loaded a driver file on. All I've ever done is copy the root directory from one computer to the next, and the next computer runs the laser just fine. So I'm thinking you may have a control board issue, or your driver folders and/or their files may be corrupted...

[James Minick]

Here is what I run:

Capture2.PNGCapture1.PNG

Running on 1 physical and 2 virtual machines, all Win 10 64 bit though.
Something to try maybe?

[Rob Damon]

My 20w fiber came with a thumb drive with the ezcad software and drivers. I am running Win 10 on a laptop and had the same issue that just never work with the version they sent me. I downloaded a previous versions on Ezcad and loaded it and it started working fine at that point.

[Melody York]

A friend who has worked on four of these machines also helped - the machine seems to connect just fine but we get the "dongle not found" error no matter what we try.

Well, we ended up video chatting with the seller for three hours.....who also couldn't get it to work. They asked us to try a different computer, which we did (no luck), and then asked for a Win7 machine. When we told them we had tried Win7, 8, and 10 already, they stopped trying and sent us a return label for the whole thing.

I don't know for sure what we'll do from here, but it seems evident this exact machine without a working USB stick is not going to work. We'll send it back, and look for another, I guess.

Thanks to everyone whoo has tried to help us. Most appreciated.

[Rob Damon]

I would try and find an earlier version of Ezcad and download from the web as a last ditch effort before sending it back. Again I spent several days like you trying to get it to run on the latest version and emailing the resaler with no success. I gave up on that supplied version and the tech support people and located a previous version and it has been running perfect since

[James Minick]

There is another way.
Make sure your USB cable is a good one.
I can send you the driver set that I have that I am using right now.
I can tell you how to install.

I need to know your ability with windows.

Two ways to do this....
Copy the driver set to a folder on the desktop or wherever you can get to it.
First you must identify the device in device manager. Don't worry if you can't.
You can power up the device and monitor device manager to see where it pops up.
Then choose replace driver, and direct to the new driver set.

Capture3.PNG

The other way is to remove the device instance from device manager.
Plugin the USB and when it asks for a driver location, point to the location you copied the drivers to.

It's worth a try.

[Melody York]

There is another way.
Make sure your USB cable is a good one.
I can send you the driver set that I have that I am using right now.
I can tell you how to install.

I need to know your ability with windows.



It's worth a try.

We're willing to try that. I'm decent with Windows, hubby is pretty proficient.

We've tried many versions so far . They sent 2.14.10, I've tried a 2.14.10 I downloaded somewhere as well. We've also tried 2.14.9, 2.12.1, 2.7.6, and others. We've tried each version on four separate computers......so at this point we do wonder if it's the machine itself.

[Bill George]

We're willing to try that. I'm decent with Windows, hubby is pretty proficient.

We've tried many versions so far . They sent 2.14.10, I've tried a 2.14.10 I downloaded somewhere as well. We've also tried 2.14.9, 2.12.1, 2.7.6, and others. We've tried each version on four separate computers......so at this point we do wonder if it's the machine itself.

FYI it could be a bad board or a counterfeit one.

[James Minick]

Send me a message with an email address and I'll email to you.

Thanks,

James

Here it is in a dropbox, The first file is an archive containing the rest.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f8xfshp2ldi9hbf/AAAl-WDT0RKLgsiswVzU24Rda?dl=0