Could someone please check my electronics?

Hi,
I've been trying for 2 months to get my printer running. I'm having issues with the Repetier-Host program freezing. I've been in contact with Repetier, Nathaniel (TechPaladin), and Ultimachine. All boards and drivers were returned to Ultimachine and checked out ok.

My setup:
Mega 2560 R3
Ramps 1.4
Pololu A4988 stepper drivers
Win XP
Repetier-Host

I'd like to find someone who is using the same setup and is willing to test my electronics.

Please don't offer suggestions on what to try- I've tried everything and am tried out at this point. I just want to see if my stuff will work on another WinXP system with Repetier or not. FWIW I have also tried another laptop running W7 and have the same issues.

I live in the McHenry, IL area. If someone lives in the vicinity and would let me bring my stuff for testing that would be great- otherwise I will ship with prepaid return included.
Thanks,
Rick

Hi Rick,

I understand your frustration, but don't pass up the opportunity to fix it yourself. Testing the electronics by themselves won't give definitive results. If you want to have a troubleshooting Skype session this weekend, pm me. I can cover some things you might have missed, and get you printing.

I can empathize Rick, I have the same setup except I am running Linux Fedora. I have electronics assembled and have not yet had what I consider a connection between electronics and Host. The demo program for the electronics moved all the steppers fine, but yet to establish the connection with actual firmware. I got online here to try to figure out what settings I need to adjust to get the communications working or something else that I overlooked.
Rich-
Maryland Hts. (St. Louis)
-howdy neighbor.

@rrr7 You have a diffoerent problem. Flyer2 is always loosing connection somehow. With linux try 115200 or 57600 Baud. Make sure to change your eeprom mode value if it is not zero. Linux seems to have problems with non ansi baud rates so the default 250000 Baud could cause the problem.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
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Thank you to those who have responded.

rrr7- thanks for the help but like Repetier pointed out I'm not using Linux.

jcabrer- I'm posting this for all to see but will also PM you.
What's happening is the Repetier Host freezes during or after running a file. Once that happens the only way I can get the program running again is to unplug and replug the usb.
I've also installed Pronterface. I'm able to manually move x, y & z but can't run any prints.

I've also tried running my printer on another laptop using W7 with no success.
Rick

Flyer2: It almost sounds like a baudrate issue as Repetier mentioned. As anecdotal evidence, I ran into a similar problem when trying to run my Mendel (same electronics package as you described) off of a Dell Mini10 laptop. In my firmware (Marlin) I had set the baudrate to 250000 which worked just fine on my Sony laptop (64bit Win7, dual core, 8GB Ram, 1GB video card) but would cause Repetier to freeze if I tried to run it off the relatively anemic Dell Mini (32bit Atom 1.6, 1gb ram, hardware video card). Only after dropping my baudrate to 19200 in both the firmware and Repetier was I able to get the printer to run off the Dell. Just a thought.

What firmware are you running, I didn't see this in your previous posts?

Just wanted to take a moment to publicly thank jcabrer for helping me get Repetier working. After 4 or 5 months of frustration he sent me a mega 1280 to try in place of my 2560. All my problems immediately disappeared. If he hadn't stepped in to help me out I'm sure my printer would be in the bottom of a river by now.
Big thanks to jcabrer.

Good to hear that.

I had the same problem last week. A new printer with Arduino Mega 2560 Rev 3 worked fine and suddenly the host froze and nothing worked. When I unplugged the USB and replugged it, the host could connect again with the firmware still running with old settings, e.g. last temp was still hold. Then it worked for a while and stoppen working again. To me it looks like the USB connection got somehow disturbed and windows couldn't recover from this error until the usb connection was restarted. Changing to an other Arduino Mega helped, too. So maybe there is a charge or Arduinos who are very sensitive and easyly get disturbed.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter!

Flyer2, you are too kind!

I'm looking deeper into the MEGA 2650 R3 problem. It seems to be spreading lately. I'm going to see if anything like this is turning up on the Arduino forums. Maybe the USB chip needs to be flashed with an update.