CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Anything and everything CNC-Shark-related

Moderators: ddw, al wolford, sbk, Bob, Kayvon

edowney
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 8:04 pm

CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by edowney »

I have a Shark CNC and recently (like starting yesterday) the shark touch plate stopped working and after the cut is finished the Shark Control Panel controls becomes non-responsive (grayed out). I can’t jog the router around, load a new file or try to detect the touch plate - none of the buttons work. If I power cycle the control panel after about a minute I can jog. If I let it sit for a while again I lose the ability to jog. Does any of this sound familiar? I can still use it but it’s a pain in the rear end without the touch plate and losing the jog is a pain too. Nothing's changed as far as hardware or being moved. As far as I know it hasn't done any windows updates recently either.

Rando
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by Rando »

Can you be more specific about the touch-plate not working? When you click "detect touch plate", does the dialog come up and say it cannot find the touch plate at all? If it seems okay, does it detect the plate if you touch it to the bit? Or does all work fine until it buries your bit into the touch plate and tries to keep going?

Sounds nightmarish!

Thom
=====================================================
ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

NWASupport
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:20 pm
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by NWASupport »

Hi Rando,
It sounds like your computer is entering a Power Save or Sleep mode which is disconnecting the machine from the computer. This can happen if the USB ports are being turned off to conserve power which is a standard setting on most computers. Luckily this is a setting that can be manually adjusted by going under your computers control panel, and Hardware and Sound. You will see a Power Settings option which should have another option for Advanced Power Settings. (This may require you to go under Edit Plan Settings) This will bring up a small window where you can select the USB setting and the selective suspend settings and disable the ability to power off USB ports to conserve power. This should prevent that problem from occurring again.
I hope this helps you out and if you have any further questions about this feel free to contact us at either support@nextwaveautomation.com or 419-491-4520
Have a great day!
NWA Tech Support

Rando
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by Rando »

NWASupport wrote:Hi Rando
Hi, Support! I'm not the one with the issue, but I concur with your recommendation, though for the touch-plate, given it's a very interactive process, some more details could be useful, given it's unlikely the USB power is being dropped.

That said, any idea why the controller is relying on the USB power at all, given it has a nice, well-regulated power supply? And, if that's an issue, I wonder if the length of that USB cable might be an issue, where a 5-meter (max for USB2) is way too long, but a 1- or 2-meter cord would have less of a problem.

Regards,

Thom [Rando]lph
=====================================================
ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

NWASupport
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:20 pm
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by NWASupport »

Sorry about the confusion,
I put the wrong name to the issue, but either way the controller does not run off of the USB power but the connection to the computer does. If the port shuts down to conserve power then it would not have enough energy to connect to the Control Box. However you are correct about the USB cable, if it is damaged in any way or is too long then the connection will not be very solid and would be prone to disconnects. The recommended length of a USB cable is no longer than 6ft (1.82 meters) as past that the information could get a little garbled and start to cause the aforementioned disconnects. If it has not already been tried a new USB cable is recommended as that would be the easiest fix for the problem. If it has already been tried and the problem persists I would definitely contact us directly to see what can be done for it.

Rando
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by Rando »

Support:

The USB specification says that unpowered/unbuffered cables can be up to 5 meters long, and that all USB interface chips have to work properly with cables of this length, that are constructed to the cable specifications. There is no "garbling" of the data at supported cable lengths, because the clock signal is embedded inside the data, on a single differential signal pair.

This constant argument NWA gives for shorter / newer / replacement cables ignores how USB works. A USB device with its own internal power should draw ZERO power from the USB bus. It doesn't need to!

I just did an experiment: I took a 3m (10ft long) USB A-to-B cable, and in the middle, I **CUT** the red wire that supplies +5V to the controller. See the attached photo, below. Guess what....it initialized, the control panel saw no difference, it jogged, it loaded a tap file, it ran just fine without ANY problems at all. NONE. In fact, I think I'll just leave that cable in there long-term just to verify that is not the issue. Your claiming that the controller/interface requires USB power of a certain level/quality is WRONG. Neither the controller nor the interface draws power from the USB bus power line. Period.
3m USB cable with CUT 5V line...works just fine!
3m USB cable with CUT 5V line...works just fine!
Thom [Rando]lph
=====================================================
ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

sharkcutup
Posts: 408
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2016 5:23 pm

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by sharkcutup »

I just did an experiment: I took a 3m (10ft long) USB A-to-B cable, and in the middle, I **CUT** the red wire that supplies +5V to the controller. See the attached photo, below. Guess what....it initialized, the control panel saw no difference, it jogged, it loaded a tap file, it ran just fine without ANY problems at all. NONE. In fact, I think I'll just leave that cable in there long-term just to verify that is not the issue. Your claiming that the controller/interface requires USB power of a certain level/quality is WRONG. Neither the controller nor the interface draws power from the USB bus power line. Period..
Oh God please help us! --- Another "MYTHBUSTER"! :roll: :lol:

Have a GREAT Day!!! :D

Be SAFE around those AWESOME machines!!! ;)
V-Carve Pro Tips, Gadget Tips & Videos
YouTube Channel - Sharkcutup CNC
V-Carve Pro 11.554

Rando
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by Rando »

Mythbuster? Oh, so you don't accept the advice of actual electronics engineers who HAVE read the USB specifications, and HAVE tested their claims and proved them wrong? Again...your comments are nothing but hostile and argumentative. You offer no proof, no facts, no actual information but to tell others you think you're right and they're wrong. Pack your bags and go.
=====================================================
ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

jeb2cav
Site Admin
Posts: 1524
Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:04 pm
Location: Kentucky
Contact:

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by jeb2cav »

On this topic - it is not about whether the usb connection is actually providing power for the attached device to use. So I'm not surprised about the outcome of the experiment.

What the NWA team was trying to say is that the USB port must be active. There's typically several power management settings for the operating system, and one or more of them control how long/when the usb hardware is powered (not that it is also providing power via the actual USB cable). Most of the computers I've looked at in the last 3 years have power management running on the USB ports, and these need to be set to always on/no management/etc. Otherwise, the control panel will in fact get confused and 'lock up' when the connection/port/usb plug hardware loses power, and then 'comes back on'. As some of you have found, there's no recovery from that - however if you're running a job it typically finishes - you just don't 'see' that in the control panel.

This is one of several operating system setting recommendations in the user's manual.

Again, this has nothing to do with a usb port that also provides power via the USB cable to the attached device. It is only about the USB port (whether or not the port can also provide power to a connected usb device) always remaining 'on'.

As far as the 'first' trouble shooting step always stated - it's a common thing to try, and typically easy to do. I've read a wide range of descriptions of interference, problems, multiple cables, etc. While I only experienced abbynormal outcomes a handful of times over several months while using a non-shielded usb cable, at one point I purchased a shielded usb cable and I haven't experienced any of these kinds of failures with this shielded cable in place. It wasn't that expensive and frankly removed that potential problem from the equation. Frankly most folks that choose to use a long cable may or may not run into a problem, but in my opinion the longer the cable, the greater the opportunity for intermittent failures. This is even more true if that 'long' usb cable is unshielded. This is also well documented and in many different manuals for various usb products and how to's. However, if it works for you, then go with Grace. I don't see an issue with the recommendation of shorter is better. That is the same for any connected usb device.

The best thing I think I did to remove these kind of electrical driven failures is to place a power conditioner in front of the control panel and the computer. This removed for me a number of intermittent challenges - but of course not everyone may have rural power problems.

I regret the confusion this discussion has resulted in. Bottom line - it is about the port being always 'on'. And it is not about the usb port providing power to the attached usb device.

laurielu
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:30 am

Re: CNC Shark Control Panel locking up

Post by laurielu »

Can anyone tell me why the "found new hardware" wizard does not open when I plug in the USB to the shark control box? I am using a Windows 7 laptop.
Thanks. Laurielu

Post Reply