Here's one for the Troubleshooters - Bit Zero V1 vs V2 - EMI Disconnects

So, for a while now I have had a Bit Zero V1, and I thought I’d upgrade to the V2 because now I am cutting more aluminum, and with an aluminum base and fully grounded SO3 XXL, it is sometimes difficult to electrically isolate the block of aluminum I am trying to cut.

So, I bought the V2 and installed it. Then the trouble started * dun - dun - DUNNNNN *

I took off the metal housing covering the controller board, removed the V1 wiring from the splitter board since I have the Bit Setter (V1 or SO3 version, or whatever) as well. I plugged in the V2 Bit Zero and arranged the wires back in the box so I could close it back up.

I close it up and turn on the machine and do the initialization. While it is doing it’s thing, I tap the magnetic pigtail lead to the top of the V2 and the light goes from green to red. Heh, neat. I do it again, and the machine stops moving. CM says that the machine is disconnected. Uh, weird. I power cycle my XXL and re initialize and let it do it’s thing. Put in a 1/8" bit and measure it with the Bit Setter.

Move the spindle to the corner of a fixture I have clamped to the bed to play with my new toy, and start the zero process.

It hits one side, cool.
It goes to the opposite side of the circle it is in, neat.
It goes to the middle and then moved to hit the third point in the circle and it touches the wall and. . . .stops. No disconnect, just frozen.

Okay, maybe I dorked the wiring a bit, so I open up the controller cover and rearrange things a bit, take out some wire bends and do a bit of straightening. Put the cover back on.

Start it up. Initialize. Probe bit length. Move to my zero location. Try to probe.

Disconnect on first contact. Get disconnect error on CM.

Okay, what the heck is going on.

Restart. Initialize. Touch V2 block to spindle once (Green light goes red), twice, third time - disconnect.

Restart. Initialize. Touch V2 block to pigtail once (Green light goes red), second time - disconnect.

Okay, nothing is moving. Nothing is shaking. Vibrating. This is a weird electrical issue.

Remove V2 and re-install V1 Bit Zero.

Restart. Initialize. Touch V1 block to spindle once (Green light goes red), twice, three times. . . 6 times. . . No effect other than proper indication of green light turning red.

Touch V1 block to grounded bed once (Green light goes red), twice, three times. . . 5 times. . . No effect other than proper indication of green light turning red.

So, apparently there is something different enough with the V2 Bit Zero that it is not usable on my fully grounded SO3 XXL. Anyone have any ideas?

Edit: I measured the voltage and current between my Bit Zero V1 and the bed:
4.85 VDC
4.05 mA

I get the same with the V2 Bit Zero as well.

Crazy situation indeed! I have to ask, but only because I know someone else will, did you select V2 Bit Zero in CM?

Yes. I did have to upgrade from CM 512 to CM 542 to even have the choice of selecting the V2. Yeah, I waited a while.
I didn’t mention it because I thought it was purely an electrical /. hardware issue, not a software issue, since only the swapping of the V1 - V2 Bit Zero seemed to have an effect.

Usually when EMI comes up after a period of successful use it’s caused by worn carbon brushes in the trim router — try replacing them?

I have a VFD and Spindle. They were not turned on or even powered up.

Nothing was turned on except for my laptop and XXL.

A shot in the dark: could it “just” be a defective bitzero v2, that internally temporarily shorts the 5V to GND when triggered, rather than just shorting the probe output to GND as it should normally do ?
Or even a miswired bitzero v2 that would have the 5V and probe signals/wires swapped ? I don’t know that it would allow the bitzero to still show the red/green light correctly, but maybe so (the probe signal is designed to be shorted to GND, but I’m not sure what level of 5V pullup it has internally, and whether that would be enough to energize the bitzero circuit/LED)

What does support think it can be ?

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I haven’t contacted support yet. I’ll hit them up Monday. I just thought I’d throw it out here for the weekend troubleshooters.

Support is open on the weekends — feel free to drop us an e-mail.

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Okay. Cool, thanks. As much time as I spend here, I should have known that.

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