Firmware update issues?

[Shane]

Hi, I took the plunge and upgraded to 3.8. That went fine but now I'm having issues when trying to update the firmware. I follow the instructions. Everything seems fine until it downloads the firmware. That window disappears and I'm left with the original " Ready to update shopbot controller firmware" window. I've tried waiting a few minutes but nothing happens and it acts like the firmware has not been update. I don't get any error messages or anything else. All it says at the bottom, "When the install process completes, close this window. The firmware in your control card has been updated."

I go and check the firmware and it is still stuck on 172.

The only issue that is different is that I get a Parameter error when starting SB3. "Parameter Value Below Range for VR -- Setting to Lower Limit (1.2699999998092651)!" Could this be causing the firmware not to update? Never had that error when running 3.6. Could this be caused by running in metric instead of imperial?

I will phone shopbot tonight but I'd rather try to solve the issue in daylight hours as I'm in Australia and would have to wait till the middle of the night to call Shopbot for tech support.

Regards,
Shane.

[Shane]

I reverted back to 3.6. But when running sb3 it can't find the shopbot. Tried everything and only by attempting a firmware update was the shopbot appearing again. It says the firmware is now 202.

Also had Run-time error mismatch 13 error. Solved that by deleting the .ini file. Am going to give up until I can talk to tech support.

So frustrated at what should of been a simple task has turned into a nightmare.

Shane.

[dlcw]

Shane,

I have been tempted a couple of times to upgrade to 3.8 then I see reports like yours and am so glad I didn't update. :eek:

I can't afford to be down troubleshooting something that should be working. And the error messages (or lack thereof) don't make it any easier to figure out what is going on.

Mine ain't broke, so I'm not going to fix it. :)

[Shane]

Good news. I've been on the phone to Frank at tech support. It had him stumped also but in the end what he suggested was to update to the beta 3.8.7 instead of 3.8.6.

Once that was successful, I attempted a firmware upgrade. The firmware upgraded but once again I received no confirmation the firmware upgrade was successful. The only way I knew was to check the firmware version and it now says 214.
After the firmware update I downgraded back to the latest stable 3.8.6 version and left the firmware at 214. Which I believe is the same firmware version that 3.8.6 contained.

The next issue that popped up with a run time mismatch error 13 when trying to run the spindle control but that was fixed by Frank suggesting to delete the spindle control reg key.
Now I just have to convert everything back to metric. And the automatic imperial to metric sometimes throws a few curve balls. But at least I was able to successfully upgrade.

I will test it out for cutting later but it was 6am when I performed the update and I don't think my neighbours would appreciate the Shopbot cutting at that time of the morning.

Thanks to Frank at Shopbot tech support. But it seems there is still one or two gremlins in the update package. I do believe I followed the upgrade instructions perfectly and the fault lies in the software.
I was hesitant to upgrade due to fear of exactly what happened above and I don't want to put others off on upgrading but I felt it important to let others know of the issues. Maybe my post will be helpful to others that experience the same issues I received.

Shane.