As a person who bought a Mac in 1984 and once had a complete run of MacWorld magazines and who still has a NeXT Cube in his basement, I wish that was a valid answer — but Apple won’t make machines suited to all our customers (for my part, I prefer tablet computers with Wacom EMR styluses running a full OS) and while certain Mac models seem quite robust in their USB sub-system and ability to connect there are one or two models which can be problematic (and a couple of older ones which simply wouldn’t connect).
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If only Apple would make their own Modbook.
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Perhaps CM could be ported to iOS instead… effectively the same thing as a Modbook in this context.
A more robust solution might be to have the controller support wifi or ethernet in addition to USB. A few other vendors have this option.
The usb isolator is what resolved my issues. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XXPO4UG/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_gzj4FbX64RDJF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Unfortunately, porting to iOS probably isn’t an option — my understanding is it would require submitting a machine to Apple for testing (possibly one of each).
Hopefully iPads will get the ability to run Mac OS X apps which is the only way I could see this happening, but maybe @robgrz has other thoughts.
I cannot say enough positive about Will and the team at Carbide. They sent me a USB isolator, which may have been the issue.
I also wrapped the vac hose, where it can touch the machine, in a thin wire, attached to ground. Lastly, I added a grounding strap from the frame to ground.
I’m not sure whether it was the isolator or the additional grounding, but it not completes projects!
Thanks again, Will!
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I saw elsewhere that worn brushes in the spindle can be a cause as well. Might be worth swapping them out. I feel like the ground wires were a cheap enough solution to be worth the effort and while I’m not certain, only time I saw something directly happen at the time of the disconnect was the vac hose bumping the Z axis motor. That leads me to believe static is the root cause.
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I replaced brushes on my first spindle, no change. I ended up getting a new spindle, no change. I tried misting with water before a job etc…
I’ve had the disconnect issues in 85 degree weather with 65 percent RH, so I’m not on the static cause train.
If it is actually static causing the issues with so much mitigation, in my opinion, it is a design flaw.
I’m a hobbyist so there’s no reason for me to throw money at the problem, but when the controller goes out completely, I’ll probably switch to a different control system.
After it was sorted (mostly due to when parts arrived) I also added toroids to the vac and router, but it felt more like a religious totem than a solution. Some have claimed magic with those and while not free, the $20 worth of bits seemed like cheap insurance.
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Pretty much every instance of EMI disconnect we’ve seen has been environmental.
- heavy load on the same circuit (refrigerators are a hard to troubleshoot example)
- worn carbon brushes
- failing electric company power supply transformer (we replaced that machine almost stem-to-stern before the power company replaced the transformer because other folks on the street complained of compact fluorescent bulbs having extremely short lifespans)
- ungrounded dust hose and vacuum
We’ll gladly do our best to work with folks on this, but it requires a bit of patience sometimes.
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I recently had some disconnect issues after I added new windows to my enclosure. When the door was closed with the new plexiglass windows the machine would disconnect. I could feel the static build as the dust extraction pulled the air past the windows.
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I agree there is some type of design flaw and they try to make every excuse in the book. We should not have to keep jumping through these hoops for a inadequate design let alone having to most likely go out and buy a 3rd party control board to keep it from being a paper weigh.
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I have also tried every suggestion listed above also I wonder what crap they will come up with next.
We shipped you a USB isolator — has it arrived yet?
If it has arrived, did it not help with this?
I’m not seeing anything on your ticket since we shipped it.
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Got it tried it and it did not help. Now what?
Already did! Just so everyone knows they are going to send me an A/C filter and ground cable.
This is crazy. I am a disabled former Marine and a $2K purchase like this is not a small deal for me. Someone sent me an email today and told me they were never able to fix there issues and I should sell it and buy a different one or do like a lot of people do and get a 3rd party controller. I would but I can not afford to do that. When you spend $2K for something you expect it to work.
We will work with you as best we can to resolve these issues, please contact us at support@carbide3d.com
Already did! Just so everyone knows they are going to send me an A/C filter and ground cable. Don’t have much faith in that though as everything is already grounded and running my controller and PC power on a pure sinewave UPS.