Job Stops at 6 Seconds

[4DThinker]

OK, well I ran a test this morning. First loaded the TAP file you posted, and set up my Shark to air cut it. It did exactly as you said... cut for a minute or so then stopped without finishing the file and didn't return to 0,0. I loaded the version I'd made after editing your file a bit, then air-cut it. It made it completely through the file and returned to 0,0.

One thing I noticed was a very slow feed and plunge rate on yours. I increased both in mine. I'm suspecting your post processor is damaged at this point. I used VCPro 7, and the post processor CNCShark-USB Arcs (inch). I'm including my copy of that post processor, as well as the TAP file it created. Check if my TAP will air-cut completely on your Shark. If it does, try replacing your post processor with mine and see if you get working results. You'll have to exchange the TXT extension to .PP for the Post Processor to work. I couldn't post that file as a .PP file.

4D

[GullyFoyle]

Looking at the CRV file I don't see any problems. I searched for flaws in the vectors and the only minor thing that was odd were the dogbone corners. Some were simply circular arcs and some were bezier curves. I edit the file to change them all to circular arcs, and then redid the toolpath. I ended up with a TAP file exactly the same length as yours. Comparing the two TAP files I can see no differences. I haven't tried cutting the file yet, but will tomorrow.

On the assumption I can cut all the slots, I'd suspect a flaw in either the SD card, the USB port on your PC timing out, or a 6 second curse. Any chance you are using a laptop to feed the TAP to the controller? If so, they often have an energy saving "feature" that shuts off power to the USB ports you might look into.

All pc's have an energy saving sleep mode. Everything needs to be set to always on to avoid shut down issues. Virus scans and defraging will be scheduled as well. And updates. Never set anything to automatic, interruptions occur at the worst times.
But sd cards and ssd drives have some file issues when they get full.
I have a couple of questions about the sd card, what size is it? What format, I assume fat 32. What is the largest size the controller will hold?
It sounds as if the card acts as storage and either overwrites or continues to fill until there is no room left. If it overwrites it may be leaving bits of old files which are not getting deleted. On a hdd you would run checkdisk.
Maybe going with a 64 gig would be a better idea, depending what the present size is.

[KevinO]

4D - I ran your "Internal Slots Revised.tap" with my .pp and it ran all the way through perfectly. I then installed your .pp file and tried my original file "Internal Slots (Test).tap" with no luck.
Since your .tap file worked fine on my machine, I think that eliminates loose SD cards, bad USB ports, computer timing out, and my original .pp.
I'm now focusing on the original .dxf again as the problem. You said you made some minor changes to it by changing Beziers to arcs and I'm beginning to think that's what fixed it. As you saw, I had already changed a few Beziers to arcs because I originally suspected that.
I have to leave to go the 9-11 Memorial in Manhattan but when I get back this afternoon, I'm going to change all the Beziers to arcs and try it again. Then I'm going to increase feed speed and plunge rate. If that doesn't work I'm going to throw the whole project in the dumpster and start again on a new one!

Thanks for your help.

Kevin

[Tim Owens]

This job does fail and we can reproduce it.
it might be an issue with how the post processor is creating the file from Vcarve.
I have Vectric looking into this. Our controller when doing arcs tests the arcs to be sure that they are indeed circular (plus or minus and error)
if it falls out side of this it will fail.
Never seen this before.

[BrianM]

Hi,

The issue with the file is that at least some of the dog-bone fillets have been created at exactly the radius of the cutter. This is giving two arc moves into and out of the corner linked together with an extremely small arc in some cases. When the arc is less than the output accuracy of the post-processor / controller the error occurs. When creating dog-bone fillets, the radius used for the fillet should be slightly larger than the tool radius to allow the tool to enter and exit the 'dog-bone' cleanly.

Brian

[4DThinker]

You may be onto something, Brian. When I edited the original file I re-did all the dog bone fillets using the fillet tool in VCarve. I put in a fractionally larger diameter for the bit used. The original file was an imported DXF done with some other software (I think). Half of the dog bones wouldn't recognize, and those I deleted manually and then rebuilt.

[KevinO]

OK, I redid the entire file and increased all of the dog bone fillets to 0.033 inch radius from 0.031 (just slightly larger than the cutter radius of 0.03125 inch). I made them all true arcs also instead of a mixture of arcs and beziers. The file cut perfectly all the way through and shut down correctly and returned to 0,0,0. So, lesson learned, if you buy and download a pattern from the internet, be prepared to spend some time cleaning it up before using it.

Now I can finally finish the Pegasus I was making for my grandson. Thanks everyone for your help and assistance.

One note to Vectric, it would have been helpful if VCarve Pro 7.0 had somehow picked up this error when I ran the preview. It would have saved me and others a lot of time chasing gremlins.

Kevin

[Tim Owens]

There are always errors is software. I am sure Vectric will put this in now that they are aware that it is causing problems.
You just got to be the happy customer that was their "patient zero" (first one to encounter it) for testing.
Thank you for putting the solution you got back in the forum.

Tim

[ohiococonut]

[quote="GullyFoyle]All pc's have an energy saving sleep mode. Everything needs to be set to always on to avoid shut down issues. Virus scans and defraging will be scheduled as well. And updates. Never set anything to automatic, interruptions occur at the worst times.
[/quote]

I agree to a certain extent and I'd like to share my experience from this past weekend.
First of all I have a dedicated laptop just for my Shark. All it has loaded is Win.XP, a photo editing program and my Vetric programs to run the Shark. No internet, nothing, and everything else is shut off.

I have had as many five different windows running at one time with no problem which include Explorer, two windows of Aspire, my photo editing program and the control panel while I'm cutting. As long as I leave the control panel for running the file alone I can do anything else I want with no problem.
Now, I'm finding that my processor is heating up and shutting down the PC, not good. When it does it also shuts down my external TV monitor, which I use to view a larger image, because it doesn't detect a signal. This past weekend I was 5 hours into a 6-1/2hour finish cut and my PC just shut down and the TV monitor went blank. But, my router continued to cut as programmed
I didn't want to reboot for fear of ruining a very nice clock I was carving in an expensive piece of crotch walnut so I continued to watch it cut for over another hour. When it finished the router went to zero and shutdown. I rebooted, reloaded the program and carved out the numbers like nothing had happened.

It appears to me that once the file is loaded into the SD card and you begin cutting you can literally shut down your PC as long as the control box for the Shark is still powered up. It doesn't need the PC any more once the file is transferred. I don't need to sit and watch the "Matrix" screen anymore.
I'm going to test it this weekend and see if this is true. If it is I will be installing a timer on my dust collector and shutting down my PC for some of the extended cuts I have to make. My router, when done, automatically returns to zero and shuts down and shortly afterwards my dust collector will shut down. And since I usually have to change bits when it does shut down it's no big deal since I have to re-zero Z anyway.

[tonydude]

ohiococonut,

That is very interesting, good to know. I'm also gonna try that this weekend and see if it works. I'm gonna do a short program on a piece of scrap to find out.

Tony