New XCarve.. worked once, now undetectable

X-Carve Troubleshooting
1

Finished building a 1000mm XCarve last night, with a Dewalt 611 spindle and no limit switches.

Got everything setup, and testing went perfectly.

Secured a piece of MDF down to my waste board, and sent the ‘test’ robot project… It got about half way through, with me happily vacuuming dust, and the power went out while it was cutting.

When the power came back on, it was late, so all I did was reboot the computer, go back into setup, and raise the spindle (Z axis).

This evening, when I got back to it, I can’t seem to get the computer to see the arduino. I get this message:

I opened the logic case, and the stepper lights are NOT on. With USB connected, but power supply off OR on, the stepper lights remain off. Manually moving the X or Y axis will light up the corresponding GShield led.

I’ve pulled the arduino out of the logic case, and removed the GShield (disconnecting the power leads), and it is detected by the PC as Arduino Uno COM3 and I get green and amber light on the arduino.

Unplugging USB, Adding the GShield, and pluging USB back in, the arduino is again detected, and I get green and amber light on the arduino, but nothing on the GShield.

Disconnecting usb again, and reconnecting the two power leads on the gshield, then reconnecting usb, I again get the arduino detected, plus green and amber lighs on the arduino, but nothing on the gshield.

Turning on power causes the amber light to flicker, a blue light comes on the GSHield, and the 12V fan kicks on, but no stepper lights.

Reading through various forum posts, I attempted to follow the ‘reflash’ guide, found here:
https://inventables.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/2058884-how-do-i-wipe-and-re-flash-grbl-to-my-arduino-

Clicking the check, ‘eeprom_clear’ compiles fine. Unfortunately, though, the ‘eeprom_clear’ sketch won’t upload, reporting:

“avrdude: ser_open(): can’t open device “\.\COM3”: The system cannot find the file specified.
Problem uploading to board. See http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for suggestions.”

At this point, I need professional assistance :slightly_smiling:

Thanks

3

Windows 8.1

4

@DavidSerhienko
The Arduino and the logic circuits on the gShield are powered by the USB cable. The blue LED, the fan, the stepper motors and the original 24 volt spindle are powered by the 24 volt power supply.

With all power off, disconnect the gShield from the Arduino. Plug the USB cable into the Arduino and try to re-flash it.

If that works, use the Arduino serial monitor (baud rate 115200 and Newline as the end of line) to get the $$ output from grbl and post it here.

5

Turned off the 24V PSU, disconnected the USB. Disconnected the GShield. Reconnected USB to arduino and Computer. Arduino is detected, and amber/green lights come on.

Was able to send eeprom_clear to arduino. Was also able to send grbl_upload.

Disconnected USB. Remounted Gshield. Reconnected USB. Arduino detected. Turned on 24v PSU. Got fan, and 3 green stepper lights on Gshield.

6

Ran a test carve. Looked decent (for the ridiculously oversized 1/4" v-bit I happened to have. Can’t wait for my 1/4 to 1/8 adapter to arrive so I can try some reasonable bits.

Thanks.

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