My prusa disconnects randomly at the middle of a print

I have a Makergear Prusa with an Arduno Mega 2560. It was printing fine until I built a wooden housing for it. Now it keeps disconnecting from the PC, some times at a middle of a print. Actually it wont run for more than 1 hour without tilting. Pronterface freezes and I cannot do anything but close the program, unplug the USB connection, plug agin, restart.

Any one have an idea what the problem might be? I already tryied the following with no good results
1. Changed the USB cable
2. Moved farther appart the cables transporting 12V form the USB cable
3. Uninstalled Pronterface and reinstalling again

I have asked around the Makergear forum but could not get an answer there either

I appreciate anyone giving me any ideas

Adrian

Heat? Pull it out of the enclosure and try it.

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

I had problems in the beginning with a wobbly usb connector on the Arduino, after I taped it to secure it the problems were gone.

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regards,
Tom

I have not had this problem on a Reprap, but have had it on other machines I have built.

A few things to try.

My guess is that the wooden cabinet may help a potential difference build up between the PC and reprap over time. It gets to a point where it starts causing data transmission problems down the USB cable, which locks up the software / arduino.

Have a look at the earthing of the machine / heated bed and pc and make sure they are earthed to a good common ground etc.

Try altering (usually lowering) your baud rate in firmware and on Pronterface as this may help matters as it makes the data transfer a little more robust.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2012 07:46AM by martinprice2004.

If you notice "resend" message, make sure the baudrates match. I had 256k configured in the host but it's actually 250k on the chip - surprisingly it works, only until there is a lot of command everything break down.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2012 03:12AM by sam0737.

Martin, thank you for your suggestions I will try and let you know the results. So you think the Windows XP software may not have anything to do with the Pronterface freezing?
Adrian

It does not build any additional heat since the cabinet is properly ventilated

Sam, no resend messages at all, only it just freezes. I you hit the connect button, mesage sayin: ¨Could not connect to printer"

If you have electrical problems in your home, it's a good idea to invest in a UPS.

I was running perfectly off an old desktop with XP, that died and because of the form factor I couldn't get spares to fit. Switched to a netbook running Win 7 and have all sorts of problems that it seems might be cauesed by the charger, so in the middle of switching to SD card printing. Also in the middle of moving house/town so no real spare time to play with my RepRap at the moment

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

Just so everyone knows: the problem was a loose connetion with the usb jack on the pcb board. I solved it by placing masking tape all around the connection and no it does not disconnects anymore
Adrian