Lost com port

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Recently had to reformat the hard drive and reload everything. The problem I now have is when I restart in dos mode (from win98se) the shopbot cannot find the com port.
Any ideas here?

[harold_weber]

Wayne, I am also using Windows 98SE. To check your port settings in Windows, click START/Settings/Control Panel/System/Device Manager/click the + on Ports and see if the settings are what you want to talk to the ShopBot box. My machine has the following settings:
9600 baud
8 data bits
no parity
1 stop bit
Xon/Xoff

The FIFO buffers are set to
14 receive
16 transmit

If the above is no help, did you read through pages 106-107 of the ShopBot User's guide? (You can get the latest version online). They mention there that you might have a line in your autoexec.bat or config.sys files that is setting your serial port for you and causing a conflict.

I'm not sure why you are restarting in DOS mode, I have run Version 2.xx of the control software in a DOS window for 16 months now with no issues.

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Thanks Harold but com ports are fine under windows, no conflicts, I just lose them when rebooting in dos.
The reason for trying to run in dos is to clear up what I think is a timing problem. If I set my jog speed anything over 2.75" I lose steps, tried hardcoding but that didn't help so the next logical thing was to check it running in dos mode.
Nothing in config or autoexec to cause it, running under clean install, believe its a little deeper than that.

[harold_weber]

Wayne, tell me the exact sequence of steps you are taking and I will see if my machine has the same problem.

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Harold, In Win98se if sitting at desktop
go start, restart in ms-dos, when C prompt comes up type cd\sb200, turn on shopbot controller and type sb to start shopbot software which inturn searches for the com port connection, it then fails to find the controller after checking com 1 to 4. Software then states no connection and continues on to start in preview mode.

I close software and type exit at C: prompt to restart windows, restart Shopbot software and I get a connection as normal.
As this is a clean install I would assume this has to be something in windows that I'm missing.
Just for your info this machine is an e-machine that ran winme which caused all sorts of problems with the shopbot, thats why I reformated and install win98se.
Might have to dig around and see if I can find my dos 6.2 disks and try that.

[harold_weber]

Wayne, when I follow your steps, I too get the messages that it cannot find the controller on COMM ports 1-4, and the software come up in the preview mode. I have the "hot rod" option on the SB controller board, and I can run up to 7 inches per second in the JOG mode before I start to lose steps.

Here is another way to boot to DOS:
do a hard boot, and after the motherboard's BIOS finds your devices, press and hold F8. You will get a prompt with several options, pick option #5, called systemn prompt only, which I think is "boot to DOS only, don't start up Windows 98". When I do this, the controller is found when I type SB at the C:\sb200 prompt.

Another way is to set your board's BIOS so it will
try to boot from the floppy drive first, put in a floppy with the system files and DOS on it, and boot using the floppy. You should then be able to get to the SB200 directory on the C drive and run the SB batch file.

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Thanks Harold, I tried booting from a floppy which gave the same results, no com ports, will try an F8 boot when I go to the shop later. What is the hot rod option for the controller and what pinnions do you have?

[harold_weber]

Wayne, I have a November 2002 PRT. I think the pinions have 24 teeth, that's an average of a few counts........

You have to send your control box to the factory for the "hot rod" option. I was sending it there anyway to get a second driver board installed so I can drive 6 steppers (2X, 2Y, and 2Z). I do not claim to know exactly what has been done; a much larger capacitor is apparent on the driver board, and I was told that they also raised the voltage to the stepper motors to 48 volts. They told me I could go 25% faster with this option.

ShopBot's Grant Bailey mentioned this option to me at the 2003 Ohio Camp.

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Harold, did an F8 boot to dos which got the com port connection (thankyou) but alais we have the same problem cannot get over 2.75" jog. The boss believes its the 30 tooth pinions thats the problem and has emailed support for help.
thanks wayne

[gerald_d]

A 30 tooth pinion is already faster than a 24 tooth. What is your processor? Hopefully a decent Pentium.

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

Gerald, its a celron 600 thats runs the shopbot but I don't see that as the problem. Another business here in town that we know well runs their shopbot on a 286 under win95 and that thing whips us for speed everyday of the week and twice on Sundays and they have 24 tooth pinions.

So we're open to all suggestions to try and correct this problem.
thanks wayne

[harold_weber]

Wayne, a few mechanical suggestions:

Will neither the X or the Y jog faster than 2.75??
Try backing off the spring tension on the pinions so far that the pinions disengage from the rack, then try pushing the gantry and the car and see how much resistance there is. Is something binding?

Were you EVER able to get jog speeds faster than 2.75, or is this something that has just recently
happened?

[wayne b (Unregistered Guest)]

No never been able to get over 2.75, never missed it until we started seeing other shopbots run and started asking why. Everyone said it was winme and timing but that appears not to be the case.
We can disconnect the steppers and everything moves freely, everthing works fine and is accurate, its just that we want to speed up the cut files