"Device Disconnected" sporadically during prints

[FarrisGoldstein]

I have a PowerSpec Pro (FlashForge Creator clone). It's been working for about a year, and I've been using Simplify3d for most of that time, because it's awesome. I'm using 3.0.1, and just in the last few days I've had several prints cancelled & ruined because the device was disconnected during the print. I've also noticed just while working in the UI, prior to printing, I'll see occasional "Device Disconnected" messages. Usually if I go to the control panel and click "Connect" it will re-connect immediately.

Things I have tried:
- Cooling the bot off for a while (no change in behavior)
- Replacing the USB cable (no change in behavior)
- Exporting the tool paths to an SD card and not relying on host-control to print (this works, but I'd much prefer to print from S3D than from SD)

Things I have not tried (in no particular order):
- Debugging the the USB DWA interface on the bot & re-seating or replacing if it's bad or loose (because I'm not sure how yet)
- A different host (because I really really want to keep using this old Mac mini as my bot host. (: )
- Cleaning the bot (because a clean bot just doesn't look happy)
- Completely disassembling the bot and putting it back together again (because ANGTFT)
- Covering myself in olive oil and running naked through town screaming "THEY'RE AFTER US! PROTECT YOURSELF!" (because it's Saturday)

Any ideas?

[ABSolutely]

Perhaps of some help: I had the same problem and when 3.0 was released, the problem started again and making the changes worked again, but the software kept changing the numbers back to the bad defaults. I completely deleted 3.0/3.01 and went back to 2.2.2 - too many bugs in newer version.

From testing various changes, I determined these two changes fixed the problem for me (the baud change is for my filament tool reset tool).

I use a Mac with Yosemite (Snow Leopard was good too) and a DaVinci 1.0A 3D printer.

Make these changes:

Menubar>Tools>Firmware Config>
set cache to 1023 (one less than 1024, which is the amount of memory I wanted allocated)
set timeout to 90.0

Menubar>Tools>Machine Controll> set baud to 250000

[JoeJ]

I've had this happen before. Eventually traced it down to a power supply issue. If the power going to your printer's electronics fluctuates too much, it will cause the electronics board to reset. This causes a serial port disconnect for any programs that were already connected to the printer. And of course, since it is just a quick minor power fluctuation, if you tried to connect again 10 seconds later, you would be able to.

I fixed it by replacing the bad power supply on that printer, but I've also talked to people who fixed these issues by just placing a filtering surge resistant power supply right before the printer.

[FarrisGoldstein]

I think JoeJ hit the nail on the head. I was watching closely during a print when I noticed the extruder motor was working intermittently and its positive voltage wire had a small nic in it that would spark whenever it tried to turn. A little bit of jostling and the wire split right in two.

A little solder and some shrink-tube and no more mid-print disconnects!

Thank you both.

[danboarder]

Thank you for this tip! I also had a problem with the printer disconnecting while the job was being sent. I would get "WARNING: Device unplugged while connecting to the port" then it would just stay "Disconnected.". I am using a Mac with OS X Yosemite on it with Simply3D 3.0.2.

Increasing the "Serial cache size" and "Communication timeout" values under the Simply3D top menu > Tools > Firmware Configuration, and the Communcations tab as you suggested below fixed the problem! Now it can send any job gcode like reliably like it did before.

Perhaps of some help: I had the same problem and when 3.0 was released, the problem started again and making the changes worked again, but the software kept changing the numbers back to the bad defaults. I completely deleted 3.0/3.01 and went back to 2.2.2 - too many bugs in newer version.

From testing various changes, I determined these two changes fixed the problem for me (the baud change is for my filament tool reset tool).

I use a Mac with Yosemite (Snow Leopard was good too) and a DaVinci 1.0A 3D printer.

Make these changes:

Menubar>Tools>Firmware Config>
set cache to 1023 (one less than 1024, which is the amount of memory I wanted allocated)
set timeout to 90.0

Menubar>Tools>Machine Controll> set baud to 250000

[headviking]

I think I solved the problem with my disconnecting during a print.
I dropped my baud rate from 250000 to 115200 and its been good for about 10 3 - 10 print jobs.
Hope this helps someone.