Apparent delay in writing NC file

Software Carbide Create
1

I jsut replaced my old desktop PC a few weeks after it’s 10 birthday. (Before retirement and when the company paid for our PCs I got a new or newer one at least once a year. My own budget doesn’t allow for that.)

New one is way faster, mostly. I do all of my design stuff in my office upstairs on the New PC. The Shapeoko and it’s laptop live in my shop downstairs. I deliberately avoid networking the two computers. That means that when I’m ready to put the CNC to work, I save the requisite toolpaths to a flash drive, trot it downstairs and insert it into the laptop.

When I insert the Flash Drive into my Desktop PC, it automatically opens File Explorer and displays the contents of the Flash Drive on one screen. (I’m using two.) Looking at CC on the other screen, I move to the Toolpaths Screen, select which toolpaths I want to send to whatever NC files I’m about to create. Then proceed to create those files, directing that they be created on the Flash Drive. Seems simple to me.

The current project involves cutting first names in various script fonts on 16" x 24" sheets of .5" Baltic Birch. Since time is NOT of the essence, this takes a while, even requiring me to flip the board and finish cutting from the back side.

For the current set of names, there are 5 NC files created for each side, ranging from 367 KB to 4,667 KB. And Yes it takes a long time to run. But that’s not the issue.

Why does it sometimes take minutes - not seconds - for the updated file information to display in File Explorer? Even after I hit F5 to refresh. It’s as though CC figures out what that file is going to contain, displaysthose results on a pro-forma basis and then eventually sends it to the Flash. Sometimes even after I’ve gone back to CC, clicked on Save Toolpaths and Save as G-Code to see what I thought I had done, the file list displayed shows what I would expect to see in the Right Side screen in File Explorer.

2

Are you able to eject the drive?

If you do so, and then insert it back into that computer (or a different one) is the file present as expected?

3

Alternately, try saving to the local hard drive, then copying?

If the USB drive is slow, then it may be that the writing of the compleat file structure takes longer than the direct write of a compleated file.

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4

I’ve figured it out. When I watch Task Manager to try to figure out what’s happening, it completes much faster. :rofl:

5

I have several older thumb drives that are still useful that are very slow based on the USB version compered to the newest speed standard. I mostly use them for text files that are small vs photos that are large. Backing up equipment owners manuals (PDF’s) for example.

6

What do you use now in lieu of the older ones for larger files?

7

I purchased newer versions of USB-A/C drives to stay current with tech for my larger files. I started using external SSD’s with much larger capacity now that they are much less expensive than they were 2-3 years ago much less than 10 years ago for some of my older thumb drives. Tech is like rust… it never stops. I have tried to balance lifespan/usability to 2-5 years at this point to ensure some of my much older files (mostly photos) are on hardware that stays fairly current.

The beauty of the newer SSD formats is that they are almost as small as thumb drives so I can travel with them and use my iPad for file transfers.

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8

Thanks for the update. I try, but I can’t claim to be staying up to date.

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