Gecko540 falling asleep - normal?

[zeeway]

I have noticed that my Gecko 540 seems to fall asleep every once in a while, when I have been jogging the motors here and there. The motors become unresponsive to the keyboard jog keys as well as the jog screen on Mach3. I can change the smallest thing on the motor tuning screen in Mach3 and everything wakes up. My computer has no screen saver or power management interrupt turned on. Of course, I guess it could be Mach3 falling asleep, too.

Is this falling asleep normal?

Details Gecko 540, 380 on-in cncrouterparts motors, Mach 3, Dell 2.8 computer with EPP set on parallel port, 41.5 inch by 24 inch overall MDF/plywood router.

[blades]

Is your computer a laptop or desktop? Not that I'm in any way, shape, or form qualified to make suggestions concerning the G540, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that a laptop computer is not recommended.... something about how it handles communication to the parallel port.

[zeeway]

Thanks for the input, but computer is a desktop.

[Mariss Freimanis]

Can't be the G540. All its 4 drives know is "Am I being told to move?" If not, a stopped axis falls asleep (reduces to 50% of holding torque) in 1/2 a second. The axises that are moving remain moving and awake. A stopped axis wakes up in 1/100th of a second when it's time to move again (goes to 100% torque). Kind of like me, I go to sleep in 1/2 a second at 10PM and wake up in 1/100th of a second when it's 5AM.:-)

Mariss

[zeeway]

Thanks for the info (on the Gecko), Mariss. I will keep looking for the culprit.

[bevins]

Originally Posted by zeeway I have noticed that my Gecko 540 seems to fall asleep every once in a while, when I have been jogging the motors here and there. The motors become unresponsive to the keyboard jog keys as well as the jog screen on Mach3. I can change the smallest thing on the motor tuning screen in Mach3 and everything wakes up. My computer has no screen saver or power management interrupt turned on. Of course, I guess it could be Mach3 falling asleep, too. Is this falling asleep normal? Details Gecko 540, 380 on-in cncrouterparts motors, Mach 3, Dell 2.8 computer with EPP set on parallel port, 41.5 inch by 24 inch overall MDF/plywood router.

I am having the exact same thing happen. G540 / Mach3 and 425oz/in steppers. It just falls asleep. Definately not the keyboard because my pendant won't jog either. It's looking like the G540. I have one of those earlier versions where it has to run in sherline mode, so maybe thats it. I knew I should have asked for another one at that time.

I think I may start looking elsewhere for another driver. I heard Hobbycnc works ok, but it is not a good match for my keiling 425's. Any other suggestions?

[zeeway]

After more research on this board and others, I am beginning to suspect that the Gecko540 is overheating. So I am going to try a heatsink and a fan, to see if that cures the problem.

[bevins]

Originally Posted by zeeway After more research on this board and others, I am beginning to suspect that the Gecko540 is overheating. So I am going to try a heatsink and a fan, to see if that cures the problem.

I have both on my G540 and it does the same thing. It doesn't even get hot now.

[CoAMarcus]

Zeeway,

You might want to check out this article we wrote about a year ago on the subject of heatsinking. A fan should be sufficient.

Marcus

[zeeway]

Marcus,

Thank you. I think I will try fan(s) first. Also suggest you include this info in 540 manual.

[chinsettawong]

Hi Zeeway,

MS Windows sometimes does funny things. Have you tried EMC2 on Linux? I use EMC2 with my 12 years old laptop and G540. No problem.

Wachara C.

[Pandinus]

If you download the EMC2 live CD ISO and bur the cd, you can boot from the CD and try it without installing anything... you just run the stepconfig to get a basic ports and pins setup, but being loaded into memory you lose the machine settings for EMC on reboot.

Its a good way to try it out. Then you get a quick look at Ubuntu Linux as well.