Help! Printer stops randomly and only after rebooting laptop I can reconnect with it.

Hi,

I have finished my new printer. And it worked the first print (see youtube link below)
I still have some issues with interference on the cables towards the endstop signal but once printing that shouldn't matter(?).

Problem is that every print after this first one just stops randomly and after every stop I have to reboot the connected laptop before I can reconnect with Ramps. In Pronterface I get a 'Com9 :[Error 2]'.
The stop can happen anywhere during print. But so far every print I tried stopped eventually.

I can still access the ramps board with the connected lcd panel and move motors etc.

I have tried using a shorter and shielded usb cable to connect the laptop but that did not help.

I am wondering if the interference I am experiencing with the endstops could be related to the connection loss.
But before I am going to rewire everything I hope to get some new insight I can use doing that.

Is it even possible for an endstop error to shut down the usb connection and halt the print?

This is the printer I am hoping to fix


printer in action:
[www.youtube.com]
(its 8 times the original speed)

Thanks for any advice!

Yao.

NB the SDcard was also not working correctly (from the beginning) so for now I have disconnected it and shut it down in the arduino code. I'll have to order a replacement.

short update.

I just rewired the printer to eliminate the interference with the endstops.
I now twisted al the wires in separate pairs and it looks like that solved the problem.

However, the print still stops randomly.

just now it halted again. I can't connect with pronterface.
I could connect wit arduino 1.0.5-r2 so I re-uploaded the firmware after which I can connect with pronterface again??? (without rebooting laptop)

I would say it's a printerface problem. I am using printrun 2014.03.10
And now I remember I just updated pronterface from a previous version I used for my mendel. ( I can't remember why I did that, but definitely not to solve this problem).

I'll revert to the old pronterface and see how it goes.

Anybody else having hiccup's with the latest pronterface??

Yao..

I cant revert to the old pronterface...
The system won't let me. I'm getting an error.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pronterface.py", line 1884, in
File "pronterface.py", line 147, in __init__
File "pronterface.py", line 702, in popwindow
File "gviz.pyc", line 93, in __init__
ZeroDivisionError: float division


Do I really need to uninstall the new one and reinstall the old one??

another update on a print fail after 1h43min:

Pronterface gives error:

[ERROR] Can't write to printer (disconnected?)
(SerialExeption: Write timeout


Pronterface also halted (I had to type the lines above)

The USB is connected straight to the laptop
I have no clue what's going on!

restarting pronterface and try to connect:

[ERROR] Could not connect to COM9 at baudrate 250000:
Serial error: could not open port COM9: [Error 5]

I thought the printer was on com 10

thanks for any insight...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 12:31PM by DesignSmurf.

So,Okey, Yes,

This is an old and known problem with Ramps.
Something with shielding, faraday cages, and ferrite blocks.
Vacuum cleaners somewhere in the house being turned on and any other noise on the grid.

That is disappointing. My other printer is using a GEN 6 board, Never had any issues with RF or USB connection loss.
If I had known this I would have gone for Printrboard..

Now I have to design some shielding around the Arduino - Ramps combination.


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 03:59PM by DesignSmurf.

It's more likely a ground loop problem which affects all RepRap boards equally because USB does not like to be grounded at both ends.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

if is groud loop, what is the common solution to solve this problem (other then printing from sd)..?