I will be one to defend the cut60. The only thing wrong with in in the past iteration was that the divided voltage board inside the cutter was causing voltage spikes burning up the divided voltage circuit in the VIM, so it was suggested to use RAW voltage from inside the cutter. Heck even the Everlast cutters have problems with thier divided voltage boards and Langmuir suggests connecting them up RAW from the inside as well.
@CrazyCasey i know you’ve been thrown a crapload of suggestions to try. And like I mentioned to you in DM’s, go back to the basics and start with a table that didn’t have limit switches (take them out of the loop completely) as the original Pro shipped without them. Next downgrade to either 20.6.2 of firecontrol as has been suggested before or even go a lil further and go down to 20.5 as I’ve been using for the past 2 1/2- 3 years. I stayed with 20.5 due to seeing issues pop up starting with 20.6 and recent versions.
In my experience, when iEMI was causing the issue, firecontrol would freeze (grey out) and the torch would stay on to where you would have to turn off the cutter to extinguish it. From what I’m reading, and correct me if I’m wrong, the freezing you’re getting is just firecontrol itself without the torch being fired. If that’s the case then the cutter is not even in the loop at that point and seems to point to either the control box or the laptop and maybe even a faulty usb cable.
Once you do those 2 changes (eliminate the limit switches and downgrading to 20.6.2 or lower) and hopefully have some good test runs without errors, then update back to 21.5 and test again.
Cheaper than going out and buying another cutter which might or might now solve your problems.
What I am calling “freezing” happens exactly the same way almost every time.
I’ll be cutting a ~12” straight line with everything working perfectly.
Around inch 9 of the cut, the live voltage, torch speed, and THC DRO’s in FireControl will all freeze at whatever they are reading in that instant.
Most times the cut completes flawlessly, but every once in a while the freeze will occur when THC is in the middle of an up or down movement, and that movement will just keep going forever, until I hit the space bar.
I am still able to pause the cut, and afterwards I am still able to manually jog, generate new cut paths, and even load new programs, and start new cuts, but the DRO’s will not reset until I close out of FireControl and re-open it.
I have never had FireControl freeze in the “greyed out” manner that other people have described.
And it seems like FireControl doesn’t “freeze” until I’ve made several cuts in a row (machine warmed up, hot, whatever you want to call it). Which again, points me back to the fact that I don’t have the required USB circuit resistance, and that resistance grows to infinity the longer the machine is powered on.
Have you checked your internal power suppy?
The control board and stepper drivers require 36 volts DC.
Just put a multi meter on DC voltage and check between the + terminals and the Com term.
If its low this could be the problem. You can adjust the voltage with a small pot on the bottom right. Its very touchy.
In the thread sticky’d at the top of this sub-forum Langmuir talks about the USB Ground and the 0 ohm resister they started adding to that circuit after the batch 1 and 2 machines went out, to ”solve” EMI issues.
So that’s why there’s an expected resistance value between the USB and the table (unit powered on), @Bigdaddy2166, @DnKFab, and @TinWhisperer.
I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be 10k ohms when the USB ground resister is 0 ohms, but perhaps the resistance comes in somewhere else on the board.
Regardless, I don’t have 10k ohms. And since my resistance on the USB circuit seems to rise the longer the table is powered on, and my issues arise after the table has been powered on a while, there has to be something there.
But I’m having a heck of time getting Langmuir to go down that road with me, and I don’t know how else to test this on my own.
Bottom of the silver power supply. Has a fan in it.
There are a bunch of terms on the bottom.
2 marked + and 2 marked Com.
36 v dc is what you should have.
If its low. There is a resistor pot on the bottom that can be turned with a jewelers screw driver.
Not sure if you already spaced your USB away from the case, but I just did mine. I just put two folded pieces of rubber between the board and the case at the top and bottom corners near the attachment points. Took maybe 20 minutes.
I figure even if this is not root cause for any issues, it was obviously NOT designed to be touching the case.
36.4v between the ports with single wire and 36.3v between the ports with double wires.
My resistance from USB to table ground is also now infinite; it no longer cycles up from 2k ohms, so if the table is relying on that circuit to be open, it’s not. THIS HAS GOT TO BE MY ISSUE…
Lastly, I’m running machine firmware v1.3LS, and I am getting prompts to “update” it to v1.2LS. Perhaps there’s an issue with v1.3LS that hasn’t been communicated?
I also received the “update” statement to 1.2ls from 1.3ls. (Posted a couple weeks ago.) I have not proceeded with the update, as everything appears to be working at this time.
Mind you, we run a Crossfire 2x2 with the XL kit, Z axis & THC.
Unplug the limit swiches from the control board. It will work without them. 1.3 will work also.
Go cut something to see if we’re making any progress.
Have you switched to raw voltage yet?
Well, I uninstalled FireControl v21.1.5 and restarted my computer. Then I downloaded and installed FireControl v20.6.2, and restarted my computer again.
I tried to launch FireControl and the title screen loads, flashes, and then disappears.
So I went through the process of manually deleting and reinstalling the necessary drivers outlined here:
And then I tried it all again, but v20.6.2 will not load on my computer. When I try to open it I can hear a solenoid clicking on and off inside the electronics enclosure.
Then I disconnected the limit switches and went through the process a third time, but it still will not load.
I did also delete the FireControl user data folder, as per the Langmuir sticky for FireControl not opening. It did create a new user data folder, but still would not open.
None of the rest of the ideas in that sticky seemed to apply, as I have previously had FireControl operate successfully on this machine.
