[Resolved] EASEL NOT CONNECTING ? I'm a damsel in distress , who's tearing her hair out!

This happens to me often. I shut down the computer and the arduino.

Restart the computer and power up the arduino just before starting the browser. It usually works.

it’s something that has started to happen recently. I used to be able to shut down the xcarve and restart and it would always connect. Maybe in the last two months it has started happening.

Don’t know if this will help…but since you moved the machine it’s worth a try…have a look at these posts.

ChrisMcleod

May '15

1

Hey,
guys. I just assembled my new X-Carve, however I seem to have hit a problem. I
can’t get the stepper motors to respond. When I turn on the power, the fan
whirls to life, the gShield and Arduino light up, and Easel on my Mac
automatically recognizes that an X-Carve is attached. But when I test the
motors through the Easel software, nothing happens. There’s no sound or motion
indicating that they even received a signal from the motion controller. I
checked all the wiring to make sure that no wires were crossed or touching. The
gShield seems firmly attached to the Arduino.

Any
suggestions? I’m not sure exactly how to isolate and test each component, such
as checking if the motors work individually or if the gShield burned out
somehow. I’d appreciate any ideas of how to trouble shoot. Thanks!

ChrisMcleod

May '15

I feel
silly. The gShield was connected to the Arduino, but not all the way. Since the
Arduino sat low in its plastic enclosure, I couldn’t visually confirm that the
two were completely connected. I removed the Arduino from the enclosure and
inserted the gShield pins about twice as deep as before. Everything works now.
(I wonder if I was inserting the limit-switch pins instead of the normal, longer
pins. Because of the enclosure blocking my view, I couldn’t see to know for
sure.)

Let this
be a reminder to others: Double-, triple-, quadruple-check that the gShield and
Arduino are 100 percent connected.

Thanks to
Allen and Tony for their responses.

I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re learning some cool stuff, and getting your feet wet in a new hobby. It can be overwhelming. I think people are just surprised to see someone jumping into something that is so entirely new to them, and they are a little incredulous of it. I think it’s great to see someone taking the plunge into new waters.

We all had to start somewhere, and we all had to learn from someone, so keep plugging away. You’ll get there. The community is here to help along the way if we can.

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Looking back at the post, I may have overstated it, @EricDobroveanu said they “may” stop supporting it. Still, probably worth noting for anyone using that version.

Here is the quote from an earlier post.
" 0.2.2 is quite an old version (released in late Octotober/early November) and we may drop support for it at some point."

So. How did this strategy work out?

@PhilJohnson I’d have to verify but I don’t think the later versions will prevent Easel from working on the older computers. As far as I understand it, the conflict happens due to an FTDI driver either being installed or not being installed.

Which OS are you running?

@Zach_Kaplan

Zach, I still find people running Windows 7 and Easel Local 0.2.5 that have connection problems that are solved by going back to 0.2.2.

Larry

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@Zach_Kaplan I have 2 laptops one running on Windows 7 and the other running on Vista neither of them will connect to my Xcarve if I load Easel Local 2.5 or 2.6. With many thanks to forum members I was told about the old 2.2 version. I just uninstalled the newer version and then installed the 2.2 and finally was up and running without any problems. Having just purchased the Xcarve I would have been extremely annoyed to say the least if the older version had not been available to correct this. This seems to be an issue with many users therefore it should be reconsidered as to removing the older 2.2 version whom to many is the lifeline to using their machine not to mention the uproar this would produce from users who have spent their hard earned cash to purchase the machine in the first place.

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@Zach_Kaplan

Hi, Zach.

I was just thinking about the problem of leaving Easel Local 0.2.2 behind. I’m sure that there have been improvements in Easel Local’s newer versions that would benefit all users.

Maybe it would be a good idea to allow the user to turn off automatic detection of the COM port and allow them to enter the COM port for Easel Local to use?

That way, we get both worlds. For those that have machines/operating systems that work with auto-detect they can run with it on. For those users where it doesn’t work, they have a fall back position to get their machines running and still get the improvements in Easel Local.

With that feature you could leave version 0.2.2 behind and no one would care.

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If you are referring to the auto-detection of the COM port, I doubt that is the only difference between 0.2.2 and 0.2.5 or 0.2.6 if they are up that high now.

When they introduced the auto-detect code for the COM port in version 0.2.3, the connectivity problems escalated. It is much better now, but it is my opinion that version 0.2.2 cures the connectivity issues because it doesn’t have the auto-detect code.

When version 0.2.3 came out it would not work on my Windows 7 machine, but version 0.2.5 does work on my machine.

I don’t use Easel, but every now and then an interesting problem comes up and I install it just to check out the reported problem. Once I’ve satisfied my curiosity, I un-install it.

Not sure how. That is completely independent software.

The reason that moving to Easel Local 0.2.2 cleared up the problems with UGCS is that the problems that occurred due to versions of Easel Local 0.2.3 and beyond is that the process of testing the COM ports to see which port the X-carve was on, left the serial port in an indeterminate state. That’s why UGCS could not connect with the port after attempting to run Easel.

Once he down-graded to Easel Local 0.2.2 the port was never compromised by Easel Local and UGCS appeared to be fixed.

UGCS was never really broken, it was the fact that the serial port was hung that prevented UGCS to connect.

@PhilJohnson

Good guess. See above.

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That makes sense. Thanks

Regardless, thanks for staying on top of all this Larry. I’m sure you have helped countless people here.

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Wow! Who knew? Didn’t know I had a fan club. :smiley:

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I have access to cnc if you need someone to make them.

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Everyone is a fan of Larry.

I’ve got an email in to engineering to learn more.

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There is an update on this problem it is addressed in this new thread.