I ran a small job this morning and everything worked fine. An hour later, after turning off power to the mini-rambo controller, after I powered the controller back on I am unable to connect Repetier-Host with the router. I tried rebooting the computer (Ubuntu Linux) and cycled power to the controller. I tried switching USB ports and rechecked the printer configuration in Repetier-Host. I haven’t tried replacing the cable (yet) because I don’t have one on hand. I am able to move the axis using the LCD control. Any suggestions on how I might troubleshoot this? Is there another way to communicate with the controller via serial connection? Thanks!
Maby look if usb port change?
lsusb in the terminal should help to see if you have any connection with the board.
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Thanks. I tried lsusb with and without the controller plugged into the usb port and the output looks the same in both cases. I interpret this to mean that I’m not connected. This (I think) means I have a bad cable or something is wrong on the board.
It seems to be the controller… I got another USB cable and get the same results. I can see an LED blink on the controller when I try to connect, but the connection is not made. Do I need to replace my controller already (about 3 weeks old…)?
Update: I tried to reupload the Marlin firmware using the Arduino IDE and that worked… now I’m puzzled… Any thoughts?
Update: I got it to work by specifying the serial port explicitly. The auto setting just stopped working for some reason… ???
I wonder what could have caused this. After the flash everything works as expected again, auto port setting, etc?
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I am still unclear as to what happened. To recap, the unit suddenly was unable to connect with Repetier-Host (about an hour after a successful run). I tried several things including cycling power on the Linux computer and the controller, changing the usb cable with a new one, connecting to another computer (Windows) and finally, reflash g the firmware all with no luck. I then changed the baud rate (lower) send the program indicated it connected but nothing would work (it wouldn’t move the unit). Then I explicitly selected the serial port (I got lucky and guessed the right one) and suddenly it worked again. When it wasn’t working correctly, I could see an led flashing every time the computer tried to communicate, but it would not connect or follow instructions. I’m very puzzled by this and don’t know enough about how things work to give a diagnosis.
One change that I made a day earlier was to wire two outlets, each with a switch, supplied from a single cord (power source). I use this to power both the router and the controller. Previously I had each plugged into separate outlets (on different feeding circuits). The system worked fine after making this change but it is something I did before the connection problem started. Is this a bad thing to do? That is should the controller have a different power source than the router?