Vicious unprovoked surprise Shark attack

[Glug]

As the cutter slotted the plastic, closer and closer to the top of the vise, I prepared to hit Pause on the control software. With plenty of time, I did so. And the software acknowledged it, by greying out pause and highlighting Continue. Good shark! And yet, in a fraction of a second, I knew something was profoundly wrong - the cutting continued. Bad Shark! Very Bad Shark! In shock, it took me a moment to get to the emergency stop.

That poor Palmgren vise my Dad gave me 30 years ago didn't stand a chance.

The Shark attack was merciless, tearing across the top face with the 3/16" carbide at 20K RPM. Well, it *was* a brand new cutter. Fortunately it was a stub cutter, and not the extra long I almost always use with plastic.

So why didn't the control software stop the cutting when I hit pause?

What, you don't believe me? You think I must be mistaken? That I couldn't have really hit the button?

Thirty minutes later, I was previewing another tool path on the machine with an elevated Z. Once again the pause failed to stop the machine. But this time, since I was not actually cutting, I was able to shoot a video of it. I was able to stand up, walk 5 feet away, extract a camera from a bag, take it out of the case, enable video mode, and shoot video. All while it continued to cut despite being "paused".

Also, the coordinates were being updated on the software. So there was feedback from the machine that it had not stopped.

How does this happen? If the controller somehow misses the stop signal, how does it not otherwise detect that it has been missed and that the machine is still cutting?

I'd really like a technical explanation of this, with gory details. I'm fortunate I didn't get a 3/16" endmill in my face.

If I can't depend on the pause to actually work as it should, it really changes how I can use the machine.

Has anyone else seen this issue?

I am running version 1.5.0.23H, on a dedicated win7 machine.

[LeeWills]

Where's the video?
Lee

[4DThinker]

Sounds like you have a ghost in your machine.

The control box and your PC have to have a 2-way conversation to work. From the Controller to the PC to update its progress, and from the PC to the controller for Pause and E-Stop commands. It sounds like you've got the Controller talking to the PC just fine, but something has hijacked the PC-to-controller signal. Have you checked your PC for remote access? Someone may be messing with you. Just theories. Have you pizzed off the Shark lately?

[McBuster]

Also, I believe, somewhere there is mentioned the USB Port has to be "Powered". You might want to check that ...

[ohiococonut]

I had a similar experience a while back. I was lowering the Z axis and it didn't stop when I released the button, it kept diving into the wood until I hit the emergency stop.
The same thing happened when I was moving the X axis and it started grinding when it hit the end of the travel limit?????
It also did it when I hit pause. The buttons just didn't seem to want to work and the problem was intermittent. It didn't happen all of the time and It had me confused because I didn't do anything out of the ordinary.

I attributed the problem to the battery in my cordless mouse. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. The mouse seemed to work but it's like when I clicked on a button I wasn't pushing a manual button hard enough. It would gray in and out but wouldn't respond. I can't explain it but after replacing the battery in my mouse it's worked fine since.

I guess I should pay attention more to the little red light on the mouse telling me the batteries getting low

[Glug]

Sounds like you have a ghost in your machine.

The control box and your PC have to have a 2-way conversation to work. From the Controller to the PC to update its progress, and from the PC to the controller for Pause and E-Stop commands. It sounds like you've got the Controller talking to the PC just fine, but something has hijacked the PC-to-controller signal. Have you checked your PC for remote access? Someone may be messing with you. Just theories. Have you pizzed off the Shark lately?

There is no network access and never has been. The machine has only ever been used for this purpose. It has been working fine otherwise, for a long while. No changes in a long while. I ate some fish recently, but no shark that I am aware of.

It's a wired mouse, no batteries involved. And I would not expect that to be a factor when the control software acknowledged the button press.

[4DThinker]

Anything the PC side does has to go down the USB cable to the controller. It might be time to change the USB cable out, or at least try it in a different port on the PC side.

[Tim Owens]

This question is was the computer still connected to the Shark when you hit pause.
The controller is designed to continue running to completion of the program even if the computer disconnected.
If you have a lengthy disconnect the controller will time out and not reconnect because is assumes there is a problem with the USB cable.
You would have to turn off the controller and turn it back on to reconnect (of course after you finished running your project).

[Glug]

This question is was the computer still connected to the Shark when you hit pause.
The controller is designed to continue running to completion of the program even if the computer disconnected.
If you have a lengthy disconnect the controller will time out and not reconnect because is assumes there is a problem with the USB cable.
You would have to turn off the controller and turn it back on to reconnect (of course after you finished running your project).

Wouldn't it be more prudent and safe for the controller to stop the operation and report an error condition if *CONTROL* is lost? Isn't that an inherently dangerous situation? Especially since there is an Emergency Stop function offered to the user in software.

Does the controller report any errors or statistics to the user to inform them that they have a connectivity issue? How can I check whether there have been hidden controller connectivity issues?

If the usb connection had been lost as suggested, how could the software continue to update the x-y-z position of the machine? That suggests there was communication, and that the software should have detected that the machine was not paused.

[Glug]

I checked the USB cable, it is perfectly fine.

Would the Emergency Stop button in software have behaved any differently from the Pause button?