Got my MPCNC up and running and have been controlling it wirelessly via the V1Pi image (the latest version on Github). I’m using the RAMBO board with the latest firmware and a Pi 3b+.
Overall, it’s been working great. One issue I’ve been having though is that fairly often (most jobs), at some point I’ll end up getting a “server has stopped working” error (sorry, can’t remember the exact wording off the top of my head, but it gives the option box to “Reload”). If I just leave it alone it’ll go away and the CNC.js page will come back up, but I’ll have lost all of my live feed information (i.e. XYZ position, sent/received, time elapsed/remaining info). It will finish the job, but I seem to lose the ability to receive any info back from the Rambo or pause/resume, etc…
Has anyone else has this issue or have any ways to fix/avoid it? It’s not a huge deal, but enough of an inconvenience that I’m considering trying to look into other options as far as controller software/configuration. I know I can connect directly via usb/repetier, but that’s really not ideal for me.
It sounds like you’ve got poor connection over wifi. Since the job still runs, CNC.js and the connection to the rambo still wotks. I would like to suggest the hotspot version, but I haven’t finished that with the latest version.
Is ethernet a possibility? What about octoprint, did you try that?
What I’ve picked up is if I use Jeffeb3’s v1pi version I don’t get it. If I use my own build of cncjs I get the same symptoms.
Even worse for me is that if I use my ipad with either safari or chrome browser it does not pick up the current “state” of cncjs, meaning it doesn’t even show that the port is open currently
The way I think CNC.js’s frontend works is, it has a “normal” website that draws everything and makes the layout, and all the widgets and stuff, then it has another connected (probably web socket) and gets just the data, and the browser updates the stuff on the website with the data. So if the web socket wasn’t connecting, that’s what you’d see. I’ve had this problem before with things like firewalls getting in the way of the web socket connection. On the pi, there is another program running to interract with the controller, and connect and send gcode (the back end).
If nothing was working (like, it couldn’t connect) then it might be a problem on the back end. If the web site wasn’t loading, then it might be the service is completely turned off. If you see the cnc.js frontend, and it’s not updating, then I think there’s a half up connection.
What’s weird is I can connect from my laptop with chrome, load a gcode file, exit chrome, rstart it, connect to cncjs and it pick up exactly where I closed it. Chrome on the ipad just load the front end. Somewhere there must be a file saving the current state which the pc chrome version understands but not the ipad one.
When you go to settings -> workspace there is a “state”, “session” section where I suspect this info is written to and read if you open a session again.
Screenshot of laptop and ipad opening the same url attached. Spot the difference
It’s definitely possible that it’s a WiFi connection issue. My MacBook doesn’t have an Ethernet port so unfortunately that’s not an option even for troubleshooting.
The reason I initially assumed it wasn’t actually a connection issue necessarily was because I’d assume that if it really is losing connection it would also affect the Rambo and ultimately the cnc job. Despite the “loss of connection” the stepper operation doesn’t skip and beat and finishes the job perfectly as if nothing happened on the controller end. Your comments on the cnc.js being “half up” sound exactly along the lines of my original theory. It really just seems like the front and back end are randomly losing their communication. I’m also not really sure what can be done about this, but I wanted to see if others have had similar experience.
