Hi all,

We've been cutting happily for some time with our PhP3.

Last night, the green light on the USB board went out. Our setup is:

* Mac Mini (new, January) running VMWare (WinXP)
* Active USB repeater to PhP3

I've checked all USB connections, and eliminated the USB repeater from the picture. The green status LED on the planet-cnc board is out. VMWare does not acknowledge the existence of the controller board when it is plugged in. (For two months now, this has not been an issue.)

Under what conditions would the controller board die? I was not present in the lab when it happened, but I'll follow up with the students to see if they have any ideas. All I know is it seems like I've got a bad piece of electronics.

Ideas welcome.

Cheers,
Matt

 

Mine went out too...before I got it operational.

 

Hi Mark,

Many thanks. However, we had a functional foam cutter for the past two months. We've been using it consistently 2-3 times per week.

When you say "before I got it operational," do you mean "when I was building the Phlatprinter, I struggled to get everything working---but eventually I figured it out?" Because that is different than the problem I posted.

We had a completely functional Phlatprinter 3. It went dark, possibly because a $200 part died. Are there known failure modes on the CNC controller that we should be aware of? Is it possible for back current from the steppers to kill the controller board? Are there any other obvious reasons that board might die?

I can switch it over to 5VEXT and see if that brings it back to life...

 

The board comes to life on external 5V power... and...

 

OK.

1. The board takes 5V external power, blinks "hello", and shows up on my VM. I did not try a cut at this time, but I suspect "all is good."

2. I do not know why, when the jumper is set to USB power, that I would not get 5V. I'm going through a powered hub, and this has not been a problem before. I've tried multiple ports on the hub...

SOLUTION

One of the students unplugged the powered USB hub.

Problem solved. These are not the droids you're looking for. Move along. Move along.

 

I was going to suggest removing the Hub and trying to plug it directly to the computer, or a different hub. Check the Wall-wart for the powered hub and see if it's actually putting out any power, I've had a few die in times past(not on a phlatprinter, just in general).

 

I've been having trouble getting my computer and phlatprinter communicating with each other using the CNCUSB controller. Finally at the point where the program should have worked and allowed activation, the light was no longer blinking. I was told I would need another board. So, that's where I'm at.