Jog keys stuck - runaway gantry -- repeatable at will

[dwneumann]

I have a problem of jog hotkeys sometimes getting "stuck" resulting ina runaway gantry. I have searched the forums and found suggestions that it may be due to a bad mouse, short circuited wires, keygrabber trojan software, anti-virus software... etc. But I am using keyboard hotkeys (no mouse) on a computer that has networking disabled and anti-virus disabled and is unning only Mach3, and this problem is repeatable at will.

If I jog an axis in Step mode, all is fine. If I jog an axis in Continuous mode but hold the key down only briefly, all is fine. If I jog an axis in Continuous mode but hold the key down for longer than 3 seconds or so, the jog does not stop when I take my fnger off the key. Result is runaway gantry. Only way to stop a table crash is E-stop.

I think this has something to do with key-repeat filling up an input buffer with keystrokes (sort of like when you hold down the 'a' key while typing and get 'aaaaaaaaaaa'. Only for some reason Mach3 is not "consuming" those keystrokes but perhaps is just polling key state?

Has anyone been able to solve their runaway jog key problems through software confguration??
Thanks. Like I said, I can reproduce this at will. It is NOT an intermittent hardware problem or malware.

[dwneumann]

update: I turned of key repeat in Windows and that did not help.
However I discovered something: it hapens when I do Continuous jog by pressing SHIFT+arrow key. If I let go of the SHIFT key first then let go of the arrow key, all is good. If I let go of the arrow key first and then the SHIFT key it results in the runaway axis problem. Is this a Windows keyboard setting or a Mach3 issue?

[tpworks]

Have you tried a different keyboard?

[ger21]

What version of Mach3 are you using? It could be a bug in that particular version??

[dwneumann]

thanks for the suggestions.
I was using the lockdown version 3.043.022 without any problems, but then I bought a license for the newfangled wizard plugin which doesn't work with the lockdown version. So I had to either go back to a 2 year old version or upgrade to the latest development version. So I'm using the latest development version 3.043.058. I'm guessing that this is the problem.

[ger21]

So I'm using the latest development version 3.043.058. I'm guessing that this is the problem.

I doubt it. Lots of people are using the development versions, and I haven't seen this reported before.

I'd try a different keyboard, like Tom said