@Joe_Tuxie than you for your diligence. Basically what this shows is it looks like the Mega Arduino is connected and working. We are creating a connection and sending data over it and it is coming back without disconnecting. @bar This tells me on a simplistic level the Arduino is working, the USB cable is working. So I want to say there could be an issue with the Shield or the Power.
Thank you
I disagree! This doesnāt look normal at all, we shouldnāt be seeing ābuffer overflowā, that means the Arduino is receiving some sort of junk which is filling up the buffer so that the machine canāt send commandsā¦this is very helpful.
Now if only I knew what it meantā¦why would the buffer be receiving all this junkā¦did you by any chance send a bunch of āBā characters?
Can you try changing that drop down which says āno line endingā to '\n? (that way the machine will be able to recognize the end of each command that you send)
Loopback Test for Arduino Uno
Per the loopback test it needs to be set forced in the reset loop. Which is what is happening when he is holding reset -
1.)Force the processor to remain in reset by connecting a jumper from RESET to GND(black wire in photo).
Iād have to test this without the reset jumper but having input tied to output means it would continuously send itās self anything it saw in the buffer until the buffer overflows and it would happen pretty fast. I think that is what is happening. Regardless to be able to see this we are getting an uninterrupted seriail connection over USB or we wouldnāt be able to see the monitor.
Thank you
I will attempt these two suggestions and get back with you guys on the results. I really appreciate everyone helping me with this issue.
Iām attaching a picture of how to set the 2nd wire on the mega Arduino here. The red line at the bottom of the picture.
Thank you
Quick update. Maslow is sending me a new motor and Arduino. I will update when those come in. Hopefully can eliminate issues with those when they arrive.
So I just received the new parts for the CNC. Thank you very much Maslow team! You guys were great. I donāt know what combination of components fixed my issue, but I was successful in the motor test. I have a strong suspicion that the motor shield may be a culprit. I will now attempt the calibration and set up. Thank you so much everyone for your time and help, it was greatly appreciated!
Joe,
Thank you for the follow up. It is really helpful to know the outcome.
Thank you
Hi guys!, apparently Iām in the same situation as Joe_Tuxie
I just donāt know what to do. Thanks for your time.
Mandrake.
I never was quite sure what the culprit was, but I had a very strong suspicion it was the motor shield. The guys at Maslow were super helpful and sent me another one.
That sounds like the there is something shorted on the motor shield to me. If you send an email with your address to info@maslowcnc.com weāll send you a new one right away! Sorry for the trouble!
Bar:
Iāve got the same disconnection issue above. Iāve tried all the suggestions in the forums here including the blink test, EEPROM wipes and full firmware reinstalls and still getting the connected disconnected issue discussed here after testing the motors. I went through the other thread about testing and viewing com traffic and the Arduino checks out fine. Do you think my shield is cooked?
These forums are great. Thanks to everyone for pitching in, ive learned a great deal so far 
D
I think that sounds like the best first thing to change. It sounds like itās been a good fix for the solution above.
If you email you address to info@maslowcnc.com weāll get a new one sent out to you first thing in the morning.
Iām sorry for the trouble! Great debugging and problem solving to identify what was going on.
For a future revision of the motor board, I would suggest adding some LEDs on
the outputs from the arduino and instructions for how to hook up a LED in
parallel with the motor (instructions rather than built-in LEDs since the motors
could run on one of several voltages)
in cases like this, a simple test program would let us see if the input and
output LEDs blink together, if not, dead board.
This can be done manually, but itās a lot more work.
Hey guys. Made an account to post that I am having the same issue.
I tried a different USB cable and every USB port on my laptop as well as 2 other pcās. I tried Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Windows 10. I have installed Kivy from source and from apt-get; as well as using the pre-bundled windows package.
Iāve tried Ground Control 1.13 and 1.14 on the ubuntu machines, and the pre-compiled GC 1.13 on Windows.
The weird behavior is that the left motor almost always passes both directional checks just fine and then when tries to test the right motor I get the āconnection timed outā error. Switching cables around shows that both motors work, and oddly I can sometimes ācompleteā the check (reporting failed status for the Right motor) by disconnecting the right motor and connecting it into the Z position (meaning the left and Z positions are connected).
I am not able to orient the sprocket at all, and I can manually use the arrows on the main GC menu to move the left motor exactly ONE time before it throws the connection timed out. After the automatic reconnect nothing works (including re-running the motor tests) until iāve restarted Ground Control.
Iāve even fired up the serial monitor that the arduino IDE has and things seem to be working fine.
Just to cover the standard assertions:
The power supply is plugged into the shield and not the Arduino (the top most plug).
I have used both the provided USB-B cable as well as one from a functioning printer that I had spare.
The Arduino IDE program isnāt running at the same time as Ground Control.
I am using the same version of Ground Control as the firmware, and in one case I even used GC1.14 with the 1.13 firmware.
The Firmware 1.13 is installed correctly, using the correct settings. Iāve even installed the blink program (erasing the firmware) verified it works, and then overwritten the blink program with the frimware again, just in case. I downloaded and hashed the firmware multiple times to verify it was correct.
The connection seems to remain stable if you donāt send any commands to turn the motors (not exactly useful this way).
I suspect either the arduino or the shield to have some malfunction. Should I also contact "info@maslowcnc.com" ?
Cheers
@Kyle_C Welcome. Iām sorry youāre having issues. Iām sure others will weigh in at some point but I wanted to ask if you have tried uploading another sketch like Blink to the Arduino.
I have more diagnostics here:
https://www.disciplesofcnc.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.ArduinoProblems
This could help eliminate Arduino issue.
Thank you
Hey Bee,
I have tried uploading the Blink sketch to the arduino (i used this one: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink) ; as well as reloading the firmware several times.
Iāll run through the link you sent and see if anything helps. Thanks for the help!
Is the right motor&cable pair āpoisonā? Would the problem move to the left motor if the cables were swapped?
Yes! We will send you a new arduino shield right away. It sounds like you did an excellent job of testing everything and that sounds like the culprit to me.
