The FluidNC Installer prompted me that it would be erased when I flashed it. Is there more than that to do?
Should I re-flash and then re-upload the GitHub files?
Might as well. That is really odd. Any signs of damage to the antenna on the board, scratches or anything?
Make sure to use 3.9.1 not the newest one.
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Will do.
I don’t see any scratches or such.
Just plugged the 32 back in, connected the USB cord and now the AP signal is full! What the heck is going on?!?!
I think once and a while that erase does not work right. I have had something similar a while back.
Curious if wifi channel congestion could be contributing/cause?
Consider ensuring your FluidNC ESP32 isn’t fighting with other WiFi networks broadcast on the same/close channel range. Am using WiFi-Analyzer but there’s probably better apps to use?
There clearer the area around the ESP32 antenna of RF impacting materials, the better…
I didn’t even get to re-flashing it though.
Currently seems to be working fine in AP mode.
I’d prefer to have it behave like any other device on my WiFi network so that I can still have my laptop connected to the internet while engaging with the controller.
How best to go about that? Asking now because that feels like it may have been the start of the problems initially.
So, the thing about all of this is it appeared you stuggled initially after joining FluidNC to your local WiFi. At that point, any saved bookmark you had would be invalid, because your WiFi AP will assign a new/different IP to your Jackpot’s ESP-32.
At that point, you should either be connecting with http://fluidnc.local/ or you should get into your WiFi AP’s management menu and find out what IP that system gave to the controller.
The other thing you can always do is that usually when joining FluidNC to an AP using STA mode, you also enable AP fallback. In that case, if you “lose” the jackpot, you can just power off your AP, power cycle the Jackpot, and then when FluidNC can’t find your WiFi it will re-appear as an AP named FluidNC.
That explanation makes sense why I was having many, if not all, of the connection issues. Thank you!
Are you able to describe the steps for identifying what IP my router assigns if I choose to try that method again?
Get to your router admin page and get to the DcHP reservation table. You should have listed every device is connected to the router would be wise to make that mac adress a static ip while you are there because it may change after a router reset/power cycle or the time it releases all mac address and flush them
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This is why we stick with AP mode. Once you start your gcode you really should not have to touch it again unless you have a tool change. I highly suggest just using it this way for a while.
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Yep thats what i use in my machines too. Sta mode used to give me a lot of issues speccially some “lag” when i hit start/resume/stop something
Thank you, all, for the assistance, I appreciate it!
I’ll stick to AP mode for now and focus on learning how to use the machine.
Be well!
Cool. Keep us informed of your progress and ask anything, it’s free
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It sounds like you are still having issues? It you want to troubleshoot further, the next steps involve connecting to a computer and using a utility called FluidTerm. This will show us what’s going on when it’s trying to establish the wifi connection.
If you are still having issues and want to do this, let me know and I’ll provide more details.
FWIW - I’m an STA mode guy. And I used to encounter a lot of annoying lags as well, especially when using the “Tablet” interface of the WebUI. All those issues went away when I updated to the 3.9.1 firmware. Might have been a coincidence, but the latest firmware seems to have addressed a lot of connectivity and memory issues.
Cool, i still use an older version of FluidNc (im a kind of if isn’t broke don’t fix it guy) as i use my machines continually, im going to use whats inside the new jackpots i recieved in December in the new builds (i guess it’s that version. But in the older firmwares I haven’t seen those issues (knock on wood) but my gcodes are pretty light.
I’ll take you up on that offer, Jason!
Can you walk me through the process?
Sure, here are some instructions.
- Get FluidTerm
This is included in the FluidNC releases on Github. It doesn’t really matter which release but I pulled it from the 3.9.4 release. You’ll want to download the fluidnc-v3.9.4-win64.zip file (assuming you are on Windows).
Releases · bdring/FluidNC
Download that and extract it somewhere.
- Power on the Jackpot without USB connected.
- Connect a USB data cable between your computer and the ESP32 on the Jackpot (it’s the only USB connector). I’m assuming you have the CP2102 driver installed since you were able to flash it.
- From the release files you extracted, run fluidterm.bat in the root directory.
- It should prompt you to select a COM port. There should be an option like \Device\Silabser*. For me, this is option 3 on COM8, so I enter 3 and press enter.
You should see something like this:
6) Reset the ESP32 so we can see the startup message. Do that by entering Ctrl+R on the keyboard. You’ll be able to see what it’s doing in real time.
7) Reply with all the output. It should look something like this. (Note that I have those errors because I don’t have this ESP32 plugged into a Jackpot right now. Also, you will have some differences because mine is configured in STA mode connected to my home wifi.)
Depending on the output, we’ll determine next steps.
Reference:
Using FluidTerm | Wiki.js
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Thank you for that step-by-step process!
Here’s the results:
FluidTerm v1.2.1 (1cf9483) using COM4
Exit: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Q or Ctrl-], Clear screen: CTRL-W
Upload: Ctrl-U, Reset ESP32: Ctrl-R, Send Override: Ctrl-O
Resetting MCU
ets Jul 29 2019 12:21:46
rst:0x1 (POWERON_RESET),boot:0x17 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
configsip: 0, SPIWP:0xee
clk_drv:0x00,q_drv:0x00,d_drv:0x00,cs0_drv:0x00,hd_drv:0x00,wp_drv:0x00
mode:DIO, clock div:1
load:0x3fff0030,len:1184
load:0x40078000,len:13260
load:0x40080400,len:3028
entry 0x400805e4
[MSG:INFO: uart_channel0 created]
[MSG:RST]
[MSG:INFO: FluidNC v3.9.4 GitHub - bdring/FluidNC: The next generation of motion control firmware]
[MSG:INFO: Compiled with ESP32 SDK:v4.4.7-dirty]
[MSG:INFO: Local filesystem type is littlefs]
[MSG:INFO: Configuration file:config.yaml]
[MSG:INFO: Machine LowRider]
[MSG:INFO: Board Jackpot TMC2209]
[MSG:INFO: UART1 Tx:gpio.0 Rx:gpio.4 RTS:NO_PIN Baud:115200]
[MSG:INFO: I2SO BCK:gpio.22 WS:gpio.17 DATA:gpio.21Min Pulse:2us]
[MSG:INFO: SPI SCK:gpio.18 MOSI:gpio.23 MISO:gpio.19]
[MSG:INFO: SD Card cs_pin:gpio.5 detect:NO_PIN freq:20000000]
[MSG:INFO: Stepping:I2S_STATIC Pulse:2us Dsbl Delay:0us Dir Delay:1us Idle Delay:255ms]
[MSG:INFO: User Digital Output: 0 on Pin:gpio.26]
[MSG:INFO: User Digital Output: 1 on Pin:gpio.27]
[MSG:INFO: Axis count 3]
[MSG:INFO: Axis X (3.000,1263.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:0 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.2 Dir:I2SO.1 Disable:I2SO.0 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: X Neg Limit gpio.25]
[MSG:INFO: Axis Y (3.000,2483.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:1 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.5 Dir:I2SO.4 Disable:I2SO.7 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Y Neg Limit gpio.33]
[MSG:INFO: Motor1]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:3 CS:I2SO.14 Step:I2SO.13 Dir:I2SO.12 Disable:I2SO.15 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Y2 Neg Limit gpio.35]
[MSG:INFO: Axis Z (-297.000,3.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:2 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.10 Dir:I2SO.9 Disable:I2SO.8 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Z Pos Limit gpio.32]
[MSG:INFO: Motor1]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:3 CS:I2SO.19 Step:I2SO.18 Dir:I2SO.17 Disable:I2SO.16 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Z2 Pos Limit gpio.34]
[MSG:INFO: X Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Y Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Y2 Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Z Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Z2 Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Kinematic system: Cartesian]
[MSG:INFO: Connecting to STA SSID:WiFiC4F7_2.4GHz]
[MSG:INFO: Connecting.]
[MSG:INFO: Connecting…]
[MSG:INFO: Connecting…]
[MSG:INFO: Connected - IP is 192.168.1.23]
[MSG:INFO: WiFi on]
[MSG:INFO: Start mDNS with hostname:http://fluidnc.local/]
[MSG:INFO: HTTP started on port 80]
[MSG:INFO: Telnet started on port 23]
[MSG:INFO: Flood coolant gpio.2]
[MSG:INFO: Mist coolant gpio.16]
[MSG:INFO: Probe gpio.36:low]
Grbl 3.9 [FluidNC v3.9.4 (wifi) ‘$’ for help]