Hey all, I am currently building a router, and have about 85% of it complete. I am using a 3 axis xylotex board with 3 of the 290ish oz motors, on a old 800mhz pc.

Things were going good, that is until all 3 of my axis started thumping or chirping every second. This was Very strange, as it didn't happen when I first tested my motors. I was able to make perfect cuts yesterday, but today everything was just trashed, all axis kept getting off and skipping.

I pulled the x axis and held it in my hand, thinking I had a binding problem somewhere. No luck, in my hand, when i would continious jog, it would still thump every second, and when I would rapid, it would spin, then lock. I started changing out parallel cables, messing with timing, lost all my settings, and most of my hair!.

Then I seen it.... I had copied a gcode file from one machine to another, and used a sanDisk 1gig usb jump drive. I thought, no way that could cause it, but I unplugged it anyway. I jogged again.....Smooth as silk. Put the usb back, glitch, chrip, and thump. I don't know what this thumb drive is doing just sitting there, but evidently it does something every second, that taxes this little 800mhz machine. Now I got to put back together everything I tore apart! Oh well.

Maybe this will help someone.

Back to Building...
-John

Cross posted in my build log.