Troubleshooting V1.2 Motherboard

Hi All,

My buddies and I are trying to put together a rep rap or two and we're having a hell of a time. Right now I'm trying to verify that the motherboard is working correctly, but the farthest I've been able to get is to have the host software output this:

DEBUG: Attempting to initialize Arduino/Sanguino [0.595s/251ms]
comms: G-code: N0 T0 *26 dequeued and sent [6.189s/5594ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [6.205s/16ms]
comms: G-code: N1 M113 *1 dequeued and sent [6.205s/0ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [6.205s/0ms]
comms: G-code: N2 M105 *5 dequeued and sent [6.220s/15ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [6.220s/0ms]

This makes me think they are communicating, but after that it appears to stall. I'm expecting to get some invalid temperature replies. Should I be seeing those?

Is there some better way to troubleshoot this board? I'm not really sure where to go from here. I think I have the baud rate correct on both boards, and it appears to at least send a few messages back and forth.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

George

Did you turn on commsdebug?

"Run the RepRap program on your computer (see here if you can't remember how). Select Preferences->Globals->CommsDebug and set it true. In the console window you should see the following scrolling continuously: "

[reprap.org]

I do have CommsDebug turned on. As well as just Debug. I think then it should be polling about once a second right?

Investigating further, I saw someone here mention talking with the motherboard directly instead of using the host software. I tried connecting directly with the terminal that is in the Arduino software. There I was seeing some weird results, the motherboard would send "start" and then a series of "ok" commands. When I would send it a string like "M105"(gets the temperature I think?) it would sometimes resend the string "start" and continue with the "ok" commands. Our quick look in the firmware implies that it should only be sending the "start" when the motherboard is reset, so I think I'm causing it to reset somehow? I'm using the most up to date firmware(as of yesterday) which maybe is not working correctly? One of my buddies working on this had older firmware on his motherboard that I was able to communicate more consistently with, but as soon as I loaded this new firmware on their it wouldn't work.

I pulled the newest firmware directly from sourceforge. This might be obvious, but are there releases of the firmware I should be using instead of the bleeding edge?

Any help would be appreciated,

George

I am using the latest firmware and it runs fine It should indeed show an error reading the temperature every second or so...

Does your motherboard blink the debug light every second? Or does that also stall?

If so, maybe there is a lose pin on the atmega. Check if it helps pressing lightly with something plastic on some of the pins. Did you solder the board yourself? Can you post pictures? then I might be able to track errors. Maybe power related.

I just realized my mistake, I think I grabbed the tip of sourceforge. I'll move back to the 20100806 build and try that. Oops

It very well could be that I've messed up the board as well, we soldered them ourselves, and it was my first try at using solder paste/heat pad. I'll let you know!

Thanks,

-George

Ok, I reverted to the dated build that's probably much more reliable. I'm still having trouble getting the host software to poll. I see that it sends and receives some correct commangds(the temperature comes across fine in debug once). But, after that it doesn't appear to poll to get the current temperature at all. I can go and set the extruder temperature higher, but it just sends the command to turn on the heater, it doesn't appear to update the temperature at all. Any ideas?

If you are using a thermocouple on a v2.2 extruder board, ensure you have the correct orientation for the thermocouple, as well as the approriate mod on the board itself.

If you are using a thermistor, use a multimeter to measure its resistance (circuit power off), heat the thermistor up a bit and measure its resistance, if it does not change then you have a dead thermistor, hence why i'm an advocate of using the right tool for the right job, ie a thermocouple instead of a thermistor.

Thermistors generally have a max temperature of 250 degrees, but not for continual use, instead it is designed to work up to ~150degrees continuously.