Host software difficulties

Hello,

I have been working on my first RepRap for a few months on and off, and I'm having trouble with the RepRap host software.

Current Situation:
-Windows XP. Arduino Duemilanove.
-Using Arduino IDE (0017) I can make individual components run fine, although I have not attempted to write a program that controls all of the components at once.
-Downloaded firmware, chose parameters, and uploaded it to my Arduino
-Using RepRap host, I cannot cause any response from the steppers. (I already found the Port(name) = dev/ttyusb0 parameter, and changed it to COM10 as it needs to be)

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get my RepRap host talking with my Arduino? Thanks a ton.

Brian

Hi

Exactly which firmware version?

Assuming you have a firmware version that works with the host the best way to start is by using a simple terminal programme and try sending simple individual commands to the Arduino and see if you get a response.

M105 should get a temperature reading back

M104 S100 should start the heater.

G1 X10. F100 should move the X axis 10mm. Note the spaces are important on the later version of the software.

If you don't get that that you have a problem at the Arduino end which needs fixing before you move onto the host.

---

Regards

Ian

Ian,

I have v1.4 of the firmware, which is the latest I found available.

I was able to get it to run the suggested commands through HyperTerminal, so it seems that everything works from the Arduino side at this point.

What would you recommend looking at next to work through this problem?

Thanks, and I really appreciate your help.

Brian

Hi

-Using RepRap host, I cannot cause any response from the steppers. (I already found the Port(name) = dev/ttyusb0 parameter, and changed it to COM10 as it needs to be)

Turn on the comms debugger to see what is going on. Turn fived off.

Also open the java program from the command line to see if there are any errors.
While the jave code runs.

regards

Stephen

Stephen,

Good call looking at the command line. I'm getting this error:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/comm/CommDriver thrown while loading gnu.io.RXTXCommDriver.
I also get Error opening port: COM10, but I believe that is due to the previous error.

I looked around online, but wasn't able to find a solution that worked. I tried pulling down the librxtxSerial.jnilib file as one person suggested, but that did not solve the problem.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks,

Brian

Open the arduino compiler software and access the the menu

click on tools / serial Port.

This should confirm which serial port / USB you are using.
(well it does with my linux version)

Try uploading the firmware to ensure it actually works.

If everything is correctly setup and still does not work then you have a software issue. You could try reinstalling the java jre software or uninstalling and reinstalling it. Altnatively reinstall the OS and start again.

Grin

Stephen

Got it!!

Thanks for pointing me towards the java jre. I downloaded the latest version of the jre, but that didn't solve the problem. When I dug deeper, I found RXTXcomm.jar in Java\jre6\lib\ext. Surprising, it was the outdated 2.0 version, and the RepRap host has upgraded to using the 2.1 version of RXTXcomm.jar. So yes, it was a java problem behind this error, but I have it worked out now.

Thank you so much for your help!

Brian

Your welcome.