new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Questions/answers/discussion about initial setup of your CNC Shark

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Muellertr
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2016 12:00 am

new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by Muellertr »

I just got this and spent a little time looking at forum but I cant find specifically what i need>

I have never used a cnc before, but i am a big computer guy and have watched tons of videos on cnc and lots of the vectric ones too, so i actually thought i knew how to get this thing going asap right when i got it.

question 1: the Pirahna Fx comes with vcarve desktop 8.. i made a basic toolpath, and saved it to a tap file, and in the post processor options there are only like 8 options, and there was even a paper that came with the software, that says to use the cnc pirahna arcs/in.tap choice. which i did. there is also a cnc pirahna 3d contours/in.tap choice. i have tried that also.. i save these, put then on a usb, and then when i put the usb into touch controller for the pirahna fx, the usb button does engage so that you can press it but the screen just goes blank and no files appear. for a millicsecond there is a splash screen that comes up and before it dissappears i can tell that is says something about detecting thumb drive, but it goes away to just an empty screen with a scroll bar on the side so fast i cant read it. it says for the pirahna that the machine software is already installed and i looked at the next wave site and dont see that i should need any kind of firmware update or such. I am using a new flash card and even tried reformatting it just to be sure, but cant get it to read.

question 2: So assuming at some point i get past this and can actually load a tap file, I cant find any video that actually shows past saving your tap file. I need to know that actualy steps, i understand the theory but since i cant find a video of something showing right up to where the machine starts carving im unclear.
are these the right steps:
1. Mount workpiece and jog to your start positon
2. press the set x.y.z botton and confirm by hitting yes
3. load tap file and then hit run

the problem is i can jog to a spot, and hit set x.y.z to 0, but after that, if you press the home button, this is your new home spot, is there not a way to make it so that if you hit home again it will raise and bring the router back all the way and to the left or right out of your way, kind of like a default home spot, or do you always just have to jog it out of your way?

and if i do jog it all the way back, to the right and all the way up, when you get near the point where it wont go any further in one direction the machine clicks, i assume it is designed to do this and doesnt have some kind of autostop when you get to the extreme end of one of the axis. but what seems weird when i set the home point all the way back, right and up, and then jog to some other point while messing around, and then hit the home button to go back, as its traveling back to "home" it tries to go too high on the z and clicks but eventually when x and y catch up, it lowers the z down just a little bit to the correct spot, its like its trying to raise z higher than my set z height for a safe clearance or something but since i had z set so close to the top of its range, that it cant go that high.

question 3: if i set up my project on vcarve, and use the lower left corner of the box for my home or 0.0.0 spot, when looking at the actual pirahna, does that spot correlate to the front left corner if you are looking at the machine from the front edge that has the pirahna logo. trying to imaging when the machine starts carving, where is the top,bottom, left or right of my toolpath going to be carved, in respect to the actual machine. im guessing jogging to the near and left on the touch panel, is the same as the lower left corner of the box on the software for start point but need to clarify that.

Muellertr
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2016 12:00 am

Re: new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by Muellertr »

One quick call to next wave automation and the questions are all answered

I was using a 64gb micro SD card. Machine wanted a much smaller one

Machine has no auto stops so will click if forced to extreme edge

If you choose The lower left corner as your start point on the software that is the same as the close left point on the machine if you are looking at it from the edge that has the pirahna plaque, looking towards the router

markjonesranger
Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2020 3:47 pm
Location: Ozark Mo
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Re: new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by markjonesranger »

I found out today if I had too many files on my thumb drives behind a folder it would only read so many. So I moved them up to the root directory and it found the files it couldn't find. My pc showed they were there on 3 different thumb drives. Yet each thumb drive wouldn't show the new directory when trying to access it via the pendent. So I moved them up to the base or root directory and there they were.

It's been a while since I had this issue and I had forgotten this fix for it. Do we know the limitations on the number of folders the pendant can read?

Anyway using 3 different thumb drives verfiying files were there on two different computers and error checking each of the thumb drives there seems to be a read issue with the pendant.

My work around is to keep the files I am using in the base or root folder and then after I am done working with them I move them into a previouscarv folder.

PatriotArt2021
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2021 8:38 am

Re: new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by PatriotArt2021 »

I’ve had my HD 520 about a week and a half now. Everything was a snap, machine assembly, software, registrations, until my pendant failed to display the taps I was producing on VCarve Pro 10.5. Your exchange here helped me fix it. Thanks so much for recording your process for nugging this particular problem out.

appcnc
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:33 am

Re: new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by appcnc »

Wanted to jump in with a similar issue and resolution in case it helps anyone.
I was not able to get any USB recognized by my Shark HD510 besides the one provided with the initial download software.
Called next wave support who helped by telling me I had to reformat my new USB and the USB had to be below 32GB.
Opened file explorer, right clicked the D: drive (USB), clicked "format", made sure it was on FAT32 for file system, had quick format checked, clicked start.
When finished I was able to properly use the USB with the machine.

spectrumartist
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:01 am

Re: new pirahna and cant load usb tap files

Post by spectrumartist »

thank you - couldn't see my tap files - I had a 64 gig jumpdrive. Dug & found an old 32gig and works great. Small little minor IMPORTANT detail!

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