Yes, this was my first thought. I told the laptop never to sleep, but do let the display shut down. It is a Windows 7 Dell, i5.
What is strange is that the Arduino still returns its status when polled via COM 3 yet UGS, when connected, says it is off line and won’t read the Arduino. Restarting either or both software doesn’t work.
Switching to Raspberry Pi and cncjs is an option but I just got this thing running and am not excited about redoing the electronics already. As I use it more, perhaps I will find more clues as to the problem.
There is definitely something scrambled because yesterday, after a cold restart, there was a big lag in response after requesting a jog. Click -Z, nothing, click again, nothing, click again, wait… three jogs! Computer OFF, restart everything… working like a champ again. Something still wonky!
For future reference, the existence of the v1pi image pretty much removes any barrier to entry on cncjs as long as you’ve got a pi and a power supply for it. There was no “redoing the electronics” when I implemented cncjs beyond plugging the existing USB cable into the port on the raspberry pi. There was about 5 minutes of “configuration” picking the proper firmware type and baud rate, and then it just worked.
There’s a bit more configuration if you connect the pi via wifi or want it to be its own access point, but I don’t trust wifi in the shop environment and have a little ethernet switch.
Thanks for the Raspberry Pi encouragement! I’ll admit I haven’t researched that option much so my comments could easily be a misconception of the required effort.
I would like to get rid of the laptop! I will take a serious look, thanks.
So I “bit the bullet” and converted to cncjs on Raspberry Pi. Originally I was choosing between Pi and Arduino to run my router, hence the “rewiring” comment. Now the Arduino is run by the Pi instead of the laptop which solved the problem of lost communication, just as you suggested! Bit of a pain to set up and configure, as I am new to the intricacies of Linux, but I fought through.
I would like the WiFi to work but while the Pi sees my network, it won’t connect. Everything is working and I know my password, it just doesn’t connect. I don’t have ethernet in my garage so WiFi needs to work or I get a WiFi extender w/ethernet but why won’t the Pi connect to my WiFi?
Also, I can’t do anything with files on the Pi due to lack of permissions. I understand that
sudo chmod -R
or something like this will give full permission to all files and folders, but I haven’t tried that yet.
I felt I should give an update on my saga. Thanks again for all the help and suggestions.
Be careful changing permissions too much. It can lead down a rabbit hole of changing stuff.
I made a (slightly older) image with cncjs called v1pi. It has cncjs set up. There is also a hotspot version that will make it’s own wifi if you want to use that.
I’ve had good luck connecting to my network, so I don’t have any tips for your wifi connection. But there are a bazillion users of pi, and there are a lot of beginners and a lot of beginner guides for the pi. I would just start searching for error messages or guides for connecting a generic pi to wifi.
I can’t create a folder or copy files from my flash drive. Is that so much to ask?
I scoured the internet for WiFi help with none so far. “Is it plugged in?”, “Is it too far away?”, and other nonsense comments when talking to someone who understands the basics of WiFi, just not the intricacies of the Pi. I feel I missed a step in the original install of the OS but ??
I don’t have the specs of the pi in front of me but it is possible that your wireless access point or router is doing what’s called band steering. If something sees and connects to the 2.4ghz band, it may shift it to the 5ghz band, even if the connecting device doesn’t support 5ghz. I’ve seen this a lot with older wifi printers. Does your wifi only broadcast one SSID or does it have split bands like SSID, and then SSID_5g, or SSID_2g, or something like that? Just a guess.