I’m running the power cord. I also have an Aukey usb dock so I can run the CNC and my Rii keyboard at the same time due to the single port.
Wish I had something to help solve your issue.
With respect to the Resource Error - I can’t use Carbide Motion and get the same Resource Error when I have a USB laser engraver attached to my PC.
Unplugging the USB laser engraver allows the connection to my Nomad. My guess is that when enumerating the connected devices, Carbide Motion isn’t very discerning and picks the first thing it finds of a particular class rather than looking at all of the connected devices.
1 Like
Mmh, my own experiments suggest that CM is in fact very specific, and will only connect succesfully to a USB device that has the exact right VendorID and ProductID.
But I guess this is a different matter anyway: if I understand correctly the OP is getting random errors after successfully connecting
1 Like
Maybe, we need a 32bit control board for the Shapeokos now? I think we currently have 8 bit boards? or is this incorrect?
The current board does have an 8-bit microcontroller (ATMega328P). Given the wonderful optimization job that GRBL people have been doing, it’s working perfectly as is and I have yet to find a single case where the microcontroller/GRBL was at fault in a communication problem.
[insert comments here, about how a 32-bit motion control board would be better because of reasons]
The “busy” message is only telling one that GRBL is currently processing a command, and it is normal to have them show up temporarily during jogging (CM keeps sendind jog commands continuously to the controller to support smooth jogging). What is not normal is if the “busy” messages stick around for a significant time after stopping any user action. I believe those abnormal “busy” messages stem from latencies in the USB communication on the host side, not the Shapeoko (which side is more likely to lag: a microcontroller that has one processor fully dedicated to processing one command queue and report over one USB interface, or a million-line-of-code OS managing the USB interface on unknown hardware among a gazillion other things, with no way to tell it that USB comms must have priority ? 
)
@munstre, at this point do you still get “serial port: xxx” errors, or just “busy” pop-ups in CM ? (and if so, do they disappear as soon as you stop pressing the jog buttons ? if so these are normal)
2 Likes
I can only say that from my experience, that CM is not overly specific with respect to USB.
Other devices connected (in my case, a laser engraver) in an ‘earlier’ (with respect to enumeration) port directly affect the ability of CM to connect to my Nomad.
2 Likes
Mmh, maybe both our findings are valid: what I noticed is that carbide motion will not connect successfully to a USB device running GRBL that would not have the right productID/vendorID (e.g. an arduino with GRBL installed). But how it handles the case of multiple USB devices connected at the same time is another thing and your case shows that apparently it will not always “find” the Shapeoko among those. I suspect your laser engraver might be running GRBL too ? Maybe that could confuse CM further. (@munstre sorry for sidetracking the thread a bit, we’ll be back to your issue in a moment)
Hey Julien no worries at all! It’s all interesting to me, gives me a better understanding of what exactly is happening between the computer and the cutter.
So my brief update here is that I’ve had some success in getting up and running finally. I wish I had one single fix that got it going but my last approach to this was like 10 different elements at once (I have an 18mo old, nap times only allow me to accomplish so much in a compressed time so I just consolidated all the ideas).
In the interest of someone coming across this thread in the future with problems I’ll just include the primary things I did. I believe I was having BOTH emi related issues AND just something wonky with the Windows installation on my tablet, which made diagnosis more tedious. I repaired the windows installation and noticed the OS was more reliable in general. I then permanently disabled all background app processes. This improved the overall experience in Windows and certainly seemed to free up resources. I was thinking maybe one of them was triggering a process and for whatever reason Carbide Motion didn’t like that “check-in”.
I started with the older install file for Carbide Motion (416 is what I had), got that running, then installed the newest version from Carbide 3d. No evidence this was necessary, but I wondered if there was some random .dll file in that 416 build that didn’t come with the newest build. I had to download a number of Microsoft C++ redistributable packages in order to finally get the .dll’s I needed for CM to open up.
I also further ground my dust collection hose, at the moment I have a temporary line setup with a 20ft long hose until I mount my final lines for the new machine - it’s technically an anti static hose but the ends need to be grounded and thats a long run of little particles generating static energy through their path in the hose.
I noticed the ground spot that worked for my XL setup is not actually grounded on my XXL. I had the touch probe on my XL hooked up to the belt clip bolt on the front Y rail. I hooked it up on my XXL the same when I was setting everything up assuming that would be grounded. Turns out it’s not on my XXL, so who knows what that was adding to my dilemma - not that the touch probe factors in here but I had been thinking that this area was a ground and didn’t inspect the line.
I got a 2nd USB hub which runs on the micro USB port, it was the only way to check against the single USB port on this tablet maybe had an issue. Ultimately I can say this didn’t matter because I’ve since checked the original hub and it seems to be running just as well.
The other major thing is something I don’t expect many to have an easy option for, but I just happened to be in the middle of renovating my woodshop - I recently took a wall down and was able to expand. I needed to run new electric for the new space, and my XXL kind of straddles the area in my shop where the new area begins. So I installed new 20a outlets with dedicated breakers running to a sub-panel, it’s a clean line (no mysterious path from the previous homeowners potentially bad installation etc…) and I am running the XXL on the new line. I checked the readouts on all the old outlets, everything seems to be ground and running fine, but, I at least knew the exact story with these new lines.
So, when I finally had a moment to re-attempt running my XXL the majority of these things all came together, which is why I can’t give an exact fix. I appreciate all of the responses here. I didn’t get to a point where I needed to test a 2nd GRBL controller but I’d still like to check that out… thanks all
3 Likes
Glad you got it sorted out. Intermittent EMI and Windows issues is a good recipe for hair-pulling, so hopefully things will go smoothly from there
1 Like
I have the Fusion 5 also. You need to switch out of the Windows 10 “S” mode. S mode protects the tablet from errant apps that may try to install malware and other bad things.
Switch out of S mode and have a great life.
2 Likes