Strange connection problem

Controllers Smoothie
1

I ordered and received a Smoothieboard last week and right off the bat I am having some strange connection problems between PC and the Smoothieboard.

I am only able to communicate with the Smoothieboard using Pronterface or Repetier-Host right after I install the Windows (7, x64) drivers. As soon as I either reset the board or disconnect/reconnect the USB cable, I am unable to connect to the Smoothieboard again. Pronterface will get stuck on “connecting…” and Repetier-Host seems to think it is connected but states “x Command Waiting” with x being a number depending on the amount of commands waiting in queue.

The only way around this is to uninstall the Smoothie drivers in Windows and reinstall them, after which I am able to connect and send commands again until I either reset the board or unplug/replug the cable.

SD-card is always accessible through Windows explorer. I have tried several PCs (both Win7 x64) and changed out USB cables, tried both Edge and Master firmwares with default config but no difference.

Imported from wikidot

2

Hi !

I don’t use windows but from what users report the serial driver windows provides is to blame for this.

I -think- one solution is to hit “disconnect” in pronterface before resetting or unplugging the usb cable.

Please try this and tell us if it helps.

Cheers.

3

Thanks for your swift reply.

Unfortunately that does not make a difference for me, in both Repetier-Host and Pronterface. So if I understand correctly this is a more common problem?

4

I don’t use windows but as far as I know yes it is a common problem.

5

@ArthurWolf: Do you use Linux?

6

Has there been any development on this? I am considering upgrading several more machines with a Smoothieboard but this problem is keeping me from doing so.

7

Hey !

This is not Smoothie’s fault but Windows’ as far as I understand. There is no way to fix this for us, and will most probably be a problem with any new/modern Reprap electronics.

You can avoid this problem by disconnecting your serial port in your host program before resetting or removing the cable, or by using Smoothieboard’s ethernet port.

The only way around this is to uninstall the Smoothie drivers in Windows and reinstall them, after which I am able to connect and send commands again until I either reset the board or unplug/replug the cable.

On the machines I tried this on, I do not need to re-install the drivers, simply switching to another USB port solves the problem

8

Thanks I will give different USB ports a shot. Right now I am circumventing the problem by connecting using OctoPi on a Raspberry Pi but that is not going to be an option for all my machines. I have tried using the Smoothieboard ethernet but the response time is too slow to comfortably work with.

9

If you are using the ethernet you should be uploading the files and then playing them. Streaming over ethernet will cause pauses.
Also make sure it’s ethernet all the way from the computer to the smoothieboard, no wifi. wifi causes delays.

Cheers.

10

Streaming over ethernet should work perfectly fine *IF* you do it properly. On pronterface there is a streaming option, or use the smoothie-stream.py script on github.
The problem you are referring to is probably due to the host waiting for OK after every line, over ethernet this is not needed and will cause stuttering.