Still Stuck on UCB

Hi Guys, I haven't been able to do a ton of work but even still I am stuck on this UCB.... ugh. If you recall I had tested all voltages on the board and tested my interconnect wires.

I double checked that I could still do the echo test with PCom using all connectors.

I never did have any luck getting the poke utility via SVN through eclipse, tried the terminal method described but cannot locate where the firmware directory went to. I know this is really basic stuff but for some reason it is really getting the better of me.

The good news is that ONE time when I plugged in my Y controller board it worked perfectly, stepper tester came up debug light blinked, the whole nine. Obviously excited I tried the X and Z boards but got the dreaded sendMessage error - retrying. Then I plugged the Y board back in and it no longer worked, I got the sendMessage error.

Does this sound like maybe it is something with my usb to serial adapter? If someone could give me a poke install guide for newbies I would appreciate it, not sure what that is beating me up so bad.

Hey,

Jonathan Marsden told me to try this to retrieve the poke tool and it worked a treat:

Try

$ SVNURL="https://reprap.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/reprap/trunk/reprap"
$ svn co $SVNURL/firmware

at a shell prompt, and look inside the resulting firmware directory for firmware/tools.

My firmware file ended up in the reprap workspace in my home directory that i had set up in eclipse

Evan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2007 06:02AM by Evanb.

Great thanks, got it to work using that, in any event here is the error I am getting:

<54><51><31><02><00><00>[54][51][31][02][00][00][d0]Read fail 2

Had the same experience today where one time when I powered up the board and started stepper tester it worked, slider moved, lights blinked etc. but then could not duplicate again? I am hesitant to start doing a lot of removing and inserting PIC components since I know that the boards work sometimes, what is the popular opinion.

I tried switching the cables around in various arrangements to no avail, kind of hoping the above error points to something I am not aware of

Thanks for all the help everyone

Hi,

If you have another PC at hand, you might try installing all the required software on that as well. On my first PC I could perform the stepper and extruder tests, but saw loads of sendmessage errors as well. When I installed it on my laptop, the errors were gone :-) so all the errors can not be put down as 'wiring issues'. I also use a USB to Serial cable (Prolific chip)

PS. I use windowsXP on both PC's.


Hope this helps,
Ron.

I may be wrong but my understanding of this

<54><51><31><02><00><00>[54][51][31][02][00][00][d0]Read fail 2

means that the message sent by the PC went all the way round the comms ring and got back to the PC. According to the wiki it is the response expected in the pcomm board test with just a loop back between TX and RX.

Assuming you have a UCB in the ring this means that all the comms hardware is working. What should happen is that the PIC that this message is destined for should process it and reply with a different message. It would be explained if the firmware was wrong but the fact that it sometimes works contradicts that.

Have you tried powering everything off, including the PC, so you are starting from a clean state? Does it always work to start with but fail sometime later?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2007 10:21AM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

the fact that it worked once is very promising. that means you're close, and that its probably something minor.

one thing you might want to try is to firmly seat the PIC into the socket. push on it and wiggle it a bit. i was having a similar problem where only half the coils were energizing on my stepper motor, and the reason it wasnt working was because the PIC wasnt fully inserted... a couple pins werent making contact.

also, do you have a stepper tester board? that will let you test to make sure its actually doing what its supposed to be doing =)