Help with Missing Comm Return

[lrheimpel]

Hi all,

Hopefully someone else has had this problem and can assist with solution.

I am having a problem with my Shopbot Buddy, in the middle of a cut the computer displays the "Missing Comm Return" error (computer has problem communicating with the bot), stops, displays error and to click OK to try to reconnect. Reconnect never works so next message is to exit application.

It is random, sometimes same cut, sometimes not. Other times a different cut.

After supposedly exiting, Shopbot application SB3 remains in memory with status of "Application Not Responding" and requires to reboot the computer to start clean again. Shopbot also has to be turned off and on to stop the router.

Upon reboot, XYZ coordinates have to be set again. Sometimes they don't change, usually XY vary more than Z does.

Computer is a Dell Latitude D620 running Windows XP

This morning I did 12 cuts and 3 of those had to be redone because of the error. I then did a cut that takes longer time and had the problem 4 more times in that single cut. I did an aircut of same cut, to test and that completed normally.

Someone told me the router could be creating electrical "noise". I did move away a couple of feet the cables going to the computer but did not fix the problem.

Any ideas?????

[barrowj]

Luis,

I had that same issue and I had an older serial to USB card. I have seen many issues reported here concerning your issue. Mine were caused by turning on a Halogen light and the next time by turning on a Fluorescent Light, both were on the same circuit as the computer. May also be caused by your USB cable. Each time it happened to me I had to switch USB ports and have ShopBot find the port. Only once did hitting the reset button on the ShopBot controller work. I finally upgraded to the new communications card ($200) and no issues since. Good Luck.

[feinddj]

I have an Alpha and had the same issues with my old laptop, which had (barely) the recommended ram and speeds. Spent 450 and bought a new mini tower with usb3.0 and more ports. Problem gone. Have not had a single comm error since the new computer.

David

[jTr]

I fought this for almost 2 years, and have great empathy for your circumstances. There are so many variables - I'll try to break down what you need to do:
- Check grounds. ALL grounding points. Make sure you have no loops
- Try using a USB hub, as well as eliminating. Mine runs way better w/out
- Dust collection - dramatic improvement for me when I installed copper wire INSIDE the dust pick-up, and made a web of it at the inlet on the Kent dust shoe.
- latest round of issues was caused by the deepest chasm you'll encounter as you try to eradicate the issue: WINDOWS

XP should be relatively clean running relative to Win7 that i'm running, but double check the power save settings, etc. I know, you've probably done all that. I did too. Then I found the action center flag had gone off, insisting on updating everything I previously told it not to. (fire walls, windows defender, etc.)As it flailed for an internet connection that wasn't there, it disrupted communications.

USB power saver. Yes, your friendly windows system, in it's endless pursuit of power saving will shut off USB connections arbitrarily in order to save your poor computer from being overtaxed by peripherals that charge, such as MP3 players, etc. When you go into power management, DIG DEEP. Specifically look for the fine print, such as "advanced settings". WIN7 has a litany of auto power management items that are completely unaffected by your general power management settings, each of which need to be individually switched on or off.

Good luck, and please, share the solution you find. Many of us suffer these issues and go through many levels of remedies before a fix.


Jeff

[shilala]

My shopbot was/is on a dedicated circuit, grounded to death, the whole wee-yoo.
I actually read the manual and talked to shopbot a number of times because I was building my shop while waiting for the tool to arrive.
The culprit?
The USB hub. I got a new one from shopbot, no more problems.
I've since done away with it completely when I got a new control laptop.
No more problems at all, except for me being stupid.

[lrheimpel]

:confused::(:mad:
I am still fighting this issue, have tried all that was suggested and so far... got worse.

Frank in support is not sure a new card would help, we'll see what comes next.

[Burkhardt]

Going out on a limb here...but many laptops I know of are not grounded through the power supply (other than a desktop tower). That means all electromagnetic interference that comes in through the power supply (like switching noise from other equipment) will have to run through the USB cable shield to ground in the machine controller (assuming this section of the controller is grounded itself). Even a hub is usually on an isolated power supply.

Maybe you can try another direct ground to the laptop, e.g. using a spare USB connector or another convenient ground access.

[aschutsky]

I had quite a few comm issues in the past and went through a few steps to resolve:

1) Grounding inside DC hose as mentioned above - this seemed to help somewhat but not completely eliminate issues. Still recommend to do this to rule out static as the culprit.

2) Install a dedicated USB PCI card in my PC. Comm performance went way up, issues seemed to be reduced quite a bit.

3) Upgrade control card (communication card only, no drivers on my alpha) to the newest version. This was the best 200 dollars I've spent in a while. :) No issues in the last 20 or so jobs I've run now.

[David Iannone]

I think SB should start including a control PC with their systems going forward. Why not?

I am going to buy a 2x3 size machine hopefully by the middle of this year for my home shop. Shopbot is great. But Comm Errors are not. I am looking at all the options. Price is NOT the most Important on the list for such a small machine. I would prefer to have a 32" buddy on wheels. Or the new larger size SB desktop? If a control computer was supplied, I would think the Comm Error would go away?

Dave

[jerry_stanek]

I was t a camp shopbot and brought that up and was told that you could buy a computer setup by shopbot. You could check with them. All machines will have some glitches even the Biesse that I ran would have a comm error every now and then. Check out other forums and you will see this is not just a shopbot problem

[scottp55]

David, Just a personal opinion, but Many different users use control computer differently. Some use a design computer and then simply transfer their files to an older/slower/bare bones computer they already had to cut only. Some, like me(protos), will take a basic idea to the 'Bot, see how 1 item cuts, tweak/twist/try different bits/feeds/speeds, and then array/nest etc.. So the control computer is also sort of a design computer and we need the extra speed of a better computer. If you follow other forums you will see it's not a Shopbot only problem.
It might be an option, but I'd hate to be the person to decide the computer specs for a "one size-fits all". "one size fits all" gloves and socks rarely fit Anyone perfectly:)
my 2 cents(and probably worth 0:)

[jerry_stanek]

Even the computer that comes with the Yellow machines that are supposed to work have comm errors and that is with a so called industrial controller. The nice thing about the Shopbot is you can use a laptop not so with some of the others that use an internal card

[David Iannone]

Jerry / Scott,
Those are good points. I am using my control computer for control only.

I haven't followed any other forums except SB and 3D Sign Forum. I have looked online at the yellow machine, but assumed Comm Errors weren't an issue. I definitely would have checked them out closer, as their factory is only 2 hrs from me.

I didn't know SB offered control computers, (but never asked). Will check with them today. I know Gary C. was offering some a while back.

I wasn't having communication errors regularly until I upgraded to 4G. It hasn't caused me to ruin something yet. But I have nicked up a few projects cause of it...... machine has done some of the grinding in middle of cuts for no reason. I don't post it cause I can usually search the forum and follow what others have done to try to fix.

Didn't mean to high jack thread, I will keep after it.

Dave

[ken_rychlik]

Jerry, I wouldn't throw to many rocks at the other color machines if you have not used one. I have not had a comm issue with that other operation system in the last 4 years.

Comm issues were here back in 08 when I first bought a shopbot. Shopbot had a decent product, but I wish they would find a more stable way to run them.

[steve_g]

Com issues are irritating, but even worse is when a Big, heavy, industrial machine with a dedicated controller can’t be repaired due to components becoming outdated. Back in another life, I trashed a large ROWE Press feed system because the controller components couldn’t be found. It didn’t help that the new owners of the company only wanted to sell new…
Being able to hook up a new OTS computer to my bot is good! But because industry standards are implemented so many different ways by so many different manufacturers and used in so many different situations, with multiple OS’s, it’s amazing they work so well!
A little grief that you’ll eventually work through is so much better than a proprietary dedicated system that can’t be fixed…
SG

[jerry_stanek]

Jerry, I wouldn't throw to many rocks at the other color machines if you have not used one. I have not had a comm issue with that other operation system in the last 4 years.

Comm issues were here back in 08 when I first bought a shopbot. Shopbot had a decent product, but I wish they would find a more stable way to run them.


I wasn't throwing any rocks just facts. Like I said I ran a Biesse and got comm errors every so often or just missed steps. I am on a lot of different forums and see they all have missing comm errors. I have had 2 shopbots in 8 years and maybe had 3 comm errors while the machine was running. 2 times it was a power glitch and one time my fault when I was cleaning around the table and unplugged the usb cable

[David Iannone]

Just got a response from SB. They don't offer control computers.

I will get rid of the Control Computer running the Bot now (XP desktop) and replace with a Win 7 Laptop, Corei7, 4GB ram. Gonna reformat laptop and stripe it down. I will keep fingers crossed.
Hopefully will have it done in a week. In the middle of redoing table base from the stringers up today and tomorrow.

Chinese spindle ordered and on the way....:D
Fixin the old Bot up.

Dave

[steve_g]

David…
A laptop often introduces another set of problems due to power management. I’ve not run a SB on a win 7 laptop but I can say that win 8 tablet has multiple locations where power management is happening. On top of that, it appears that each App can choose to respect your settings or not!
Here’s what I’m running under win 7 with zero com issues. (Note, the price is without memory, SS drive etc).
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/intel-nuc-next-unit-of-computing-kit-intel-celeron-black/1069008.p?id=1219465274561&skuId=1069008&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=1069008&extensionType=pla:g&s_kwcid=PTC!pla!!!80819842999!g!!52599690919&kpid=1069008&k_clickid=38773598-fab7-29c9-32b3-00003caf811e&kpid=1069008&lsft=ref:212,loc:1&ksid=38773598-fab7-29c9-32b3-00003caf811e&ksprof_id=8&ksaffcode=9&ksdevice=c (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/intel-nuc-next-unit-of-computing-kit-intel-celeron-black/1069008.p?id=1219465274561&skuId=1069008&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=1069008&extensionType=pla:g&s_kwcid=PTC!pla!!!80819842999!g!!52599690919&kpid=1069008&k_clickid=38773598-fab7-29c9-32b3-00003caf811e&kpid=1069008&lsft=ref:212,loc:1&ksid=38773598-fab7-29c9-32b3-00003caf811e&ksprof_id=8&ksaffcode=9&ksdevice=c)
SG

[David Iannone]

Steve,
Thank you for the info. Just checked it out. So I add Ram, HD, OS? I have actually never seen one of these devices. (not to sound dumb)

No com issues, that is what I am looking to get back to. I will have to read more into this setup.

What version of control software are you running? what year machine

I'm running 4x8 2001 PRT with SB 3.8.26 with 4G upgrade. Before 4g I rarely had lost steps or lost position. But now there are gremlins. When I Finally after all these years when to the new board I figured go right to the newest control software too?

It wasn't broke, but I wanted to fix it....:cool:

[jerry_stanek]

I run mine on a refurbished HP computer with 2 gigs of ram stripped down windows 7 no anti virus no updates not much but Windows 7 and Aspire. Have not had any comm errors on it. PRS Standard 4g

[barrowj]

All,

If anyone needs them I have several Dell GX270 XP machines that I have gone through and reimaged with the original factory image. Will sell them for $30 plus ship. I work in the IT industry and these are left over from a corp refresh...

Joe

[jerry_stanek]

This is the one that I bought.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=459065

[lrheimpel]

Finally!

My shopbot seems to be back in business. 3 days cutting without problems.

I did a lot to insure the electrical supply was clean and without interference from other equipment, grounding, etc.

However, the solution came by replacing the USB card and with it the firmware on the control box and laptop.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

[lrheimpel]

One year later... SAME PROBLEM!!!!

Quickly went through the whole check up scenario, could be static, could be noise, etc but everything was working and was the same (laptop, cable, etc) as a year ago.

So I just requested a new control card (hurry up Fedex !!) and waiting for it to arrive and swap them.

Hopefully another year of work after that.