Cannot configure the drive.

[LBodnar]

I was trying to set up a VSD-A drive. I had only logic +24v connected and a USB cable.

After establishing initial communication I have pressed "Reset Drive" in menu.

Now I have lost and cannot establish communication and get the message "Card not found, please check cabling and power"

USB cable is showing up OK in devices list on COM3. Restarted, rebooted, reinstalled GDtools, tried two different PCs, tried starting the drive in firmware bootload mode. Nothing helps.

Do I have any other options or just use it as an expensive paperweight? It had only worked for less then two minutes...

[scrambled]

LBodnar


I am having the same type of problem. I am using the VSD-E version, but right now I am having the same problem as you are. According to the manual, it says that loosing communication is caused by excessive noise.

I am waiting for some 330 UF capacitors to connect to my HV. The manual says that this will help reduce noise.

I will let you know what I find out. If you figure anything out, please let me know


Steve

AKA Scrambled

[LBodnar]

I had some progress!

I have checked and re-plugged all connectors but it did not help. Connectors seem to be clean and tight fitting, no corrosion, etc.

Then I have taken my meter and started checking voltages on the CMD connector. After I have measured and checked everything including +5V supply voltage on pin 5 I have tried to connect to the drive and magically connection did happen this time.

I have no explanation to this. I hope it was some sort of latch-up of either optocouplers or FTDI cable.

scrambled, does VSD-E really need HV supply to establish communication with the PC? I was able to connect to VSD-A and observe drive information including undervoltage fault condition with only logic supply and FTDI cable.

[radiantheat]

" Does VSD-E really need HV supply to establish communication with the PC? I was able to connect to VSD-A and observe drive information including undervoltage fault condition with only logic supply and FTDI cable. ? "


to confirm : I connected to my "E" with just 12V dc and had perfect communication. Have never had signal problems that I know of , although not full running yet .

[scrambled]

LBodnar, and radiantheat--

You are correct, I can connect to the drive with the HV unplugged. But when I try to configure the drive, the drive communications locks up tighter than a drum.

So unless I figure the communication problem out, I have a nice looking paperweight with a solid blue led.

thanks



Steve

[LBodnar]

I have VSD-XE returned by the customer as giving comm errors.

After rewiring the assembly and re-adjusting the controller firmware I am trying to connect to VSD-XE with an FTDI cable. I cannot.

If I am starting the drive with USB cable attached as per GDtool instructions it produces solid green and blinking red (firmware update?) and still refuses to connect to GDtool. If I start the drive and then try to attach to it with GDtool I still get connection "Error. Connection failed. Please check connections."

I can see the FTDI cable as COM4 with no problems in Windows.

If I disconnect FTDI and controller and restart the drive it tries to align the motor as it should. The only problem we have replaced the motor and encoder resolution has changed. Customer is waiting for overnight return...

I am so frustrated I am close to smashing the darn thing to bits.

Edit: I have checked that cable is more or less operational by shorting Tx/Rx pins (yellow/orange) according to http://www.ftdichip.com/Documents/Da...ABLES_V201.pdf and checking loopback response in Hyperterminal.

Any suggestions?

[Xerxes]

Top 3 reasons (covering about 99% cases) why communication fails:

1. Interference (only when HV supply is on). Motor cable & motor case shielding are very important. Also wrapping USB cable thru a ferrite core may help.
2. Drive is not in correct mode to receive SPI commands. In VSD-A this is set by jumpers and in VSD-E it is set by special power-up sequence (follow GDtool instructions).
3. USB adapter may be faulty or broken. We have seen such cases, few cables has come faulty from factory and some fail from improper connection. Use attached program to test it (not 100% foolproof though).

I have only once seen a fault in drive (VSD-A) that prevented communication. It was bad soldering in jumper header so jumper setting did not work.

[Xerxes]

I hope the #1 reason is finally history since VSD-E Rev2 got much more noise tolerant optoisolator for SPI. In my tests I was not able to lose communication even when no shielding at all was used and 200VDC was supplied to drive (the worst case combination).

[LBodnar]

Connect YELLOW and BROWN cable pins
Press any key to start test

Scanning devices...Ok
1 USB cables found.
Opening Device...Ok
Configuring cable:
Bit bang mode...Ok
Timeouts...Ok
Latency...Ok
Baudrate...Ok
Cable IO test
Sending data...Ok
Reading data...Ok
Comparing data...
Error
Possible problem here!
Test FAILED

I have used this cable just two week ago and it worked fine
VSD-XE was OK for playing around but it turned out it has too many sharp ends and little problems for production use. When customer hits the problem you don't even know where to start troubleshooting so the whole system has to be sent back and forth... It's a shame since it's a great product on paper...

[Xerxes]

So it seems that FTDI cable is broken for some reason. There should be no way to kill it if its connected correctly to drive SPI connector since it drives only optoisolators. Also nothing should be plugged to CMD connector same time since it shares pins (whatever is connected to CMD could potentially kill the cable). If cable still fails, it must be quality issue of FTDI. If this kind of issues start occurring too much, I must develop an alternative to that cable. Luckily it's not critical part for production machines as it is needed only for one time when setting parameters.

If you wish to try the improved Rev 2 (160V) drives, just email me and we could arrange you a chance to try it.

BTW, could you also list the other sharp ends and little problems you have encountered? That info would be used to iron them out

[stevespo]

Getting: "Connection failed - Error - Connection failed. Please check connections."

I just setup a "new" computer for testing and I'm unable to connect to my VSD-E R1 with the new PC. All my other PC USB devices work fine, and I can see the device in the Device Manager as USB Serial Port (COM3), manufacturer FTDI.

I can't imagine anything happened to the cable because it was working fine just a few hours ago. No changes in terms of interference, etc. I disconnected the HV inputs and this did not help.

I already went ahead and uninstalled the driver, uninstalled/reinstalled GDTool 2.5.1. The USB device appeared to get recognized by XP and told me it was ready to use - but I'm still not having any luck connecting with GDTool. The port settings are 9600 baud, 8 data, No parity, 1 stop bit, No flow control.

Above Xerxes suggested:

2. Drive is not in correct mode to receive SPI commands. In VSD-A this is set by jumpers and in VSD-E it is set by special power-up sequence (follow GDtool instructions).

I've gone through the docs and can't find any mention of this special sequence. I'll try and hook up the old PC and see what happens. Would appreciate any advice or ideas on this one. The drive works just fine with Mach3, I just can't connect with GDtool.

Thanks,

Steve

[stevespo]

The "old" computer works just fine, with the same cable, same power config, etc. So this is apparently a local config issue with my new XP machine.

I compared settings between the old/new and didn't see any issues. I changed the COM port number from COM3 -> COM4, but that didn't make a difference.

This XP install is so fresh, maybe I'll let the auto updates happen and see if that helps anything.

I really don't want to go back to the old machine. It's too slow!

Steve