communication problems - Please Help

[Anwar]

Dear Friends ,
Im working with my ALPHA 27 from 2011 ( Shopbot 3 , laptop with Windows 7 ) , no SB and computer maintenance or update , more than few years im suffer from communication problems , solved by restart the laptop and work well .

last week its , show Real problems ;
1- loss com , suddenly
2- Error com message
3- STOP Button ON ( without Press )
4- Speed Test 37 efficiency .
5- Always Have red Cycle on input 4 .
6- Very Slow with using arrow controls key.
7- very slowly working with any job

I did some steps ;
1- I added USB 3 power Dealing Hub (Before I contact straight from Laptop to Shopbot )- no one give or inform me about USB Hub .
2- Change the USB wire .

Nothing Change .

Please Help and advice

[jTr]

GROUNDING: First physical step to eliminating the issue. Read manual for proper grounding routine. Be certain your dust collection is grounded fully to the dust shoe opening on the shopbot, while NOT connecting to anything metallic on the shopbot at that point, or you'll have a ground loop.

COMPUTER: Beg/borrow another machine as a test, and see what happens. I ultimately ditched my brand new "shop-bot only - no internet" configured laptop within a few months and had better performance running a conventional tower system. Whether you are able to do this or not, check with the "black viper" webpage for a very detailed description and list of things to shut off in order to transform your computer into a clean master to run the CNC. This guy has posted how to dig in and shut off many of these types of time bombs waiting to go off within windows.

USB HUB: My machine and CPU combination does not work well with a hub. Mine was new in 2011 also.

SOFTWARE: double check your version of SB3. Last update has finally eliminated the last of the random bugs that occurred.

Laptops can be very tricky- it is their nature to have redundant power saving triggers. One I got stung with was USB allocation. This feature is designed to disconnect anything plugged in for an extended period, for fear it may be a device that is charging and diminishing battery reserves, so that feature would randomly shut off the port connected to the CNC in hopes of protecting the laptop from excessive battery drainage.

Another issue I had was automatic updates. My system was randomly trying to connect to internet for updates, even after turning off auto updates during general setup. Each time it attempted to find the internet and update, data flow to the CNC was disrupted.

Took about a year and one half for me to finally eliminate these communications problems. You will get through this. Just need to try one thing at a time.

Final note: it has been indicated that Shopbot is working on a simplified controller card system that will radically change all this behavior, but I have not heard any news about it for close to a year now...

Good luck,

Jeff

[jerry_stanek]

I agree about trying a desktop computer You may want to see about using a USB 2 port also. I don't know what version of software you are running

[Anwar]

I agree about trying a desktop computer You may want to see about using a USB 2 port also. I don't know what version of software you are running

Thanks to All ,
Im using ShopBot 3.5.10 -

[Anwar]

Well Jeff , I will try with new Laptop , and update my SB version to SB 3_6_46 , I dont know how to set data at new SB . Thanks