Don’t. You just un-intentionaly purchased spare parts. I have a shipping container full of “spare parts” from all my past projects.
Thanks for the complement on the idea, it is always nice to hear that some of my ideas are not too far out in left field.
These are the buck converters that I have. I got them to power an RPi for Octoprint for my Ender, and I know I only need one for that, and then I was also going to use one to power a fan for the new enclosure I am going to print for it. That leaves me with 2 left over, but again I am stuck on powering a 24v power supply just to step it down to 12v when I can just get a 12v power supply and and work it from there. The only thing I would need to figure out is how many watts max I would need to power the Pi and the Arduino/Shield so I get the right one and not under-power everything causing a brownout and all the issues that would go with that.
I found this from @MakerMadeCNC in another post that the new DUE (for the M2) is 12v, and runs off the same power supply as the original 1.2 Shield, so I can use that as my basis for the power requirements and go from there. Again, I would just need to figure out the wattage needed for everything.
Thanks again for your setup images…it gives me a bit more to think about in how I am redoing and getting my Maslow set back up.
Sweet. Orob’s video on that was pretty good.
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Yes, it was a great video! Baseball was cancelled tonight due to my son hurting himself in gym (I blame in on the masks!), so in not much time with that video I was able to easily accomplish that setup in minimal time which was fantastic. Tomorrow we test with no router, and while she runs I sand and paint the metal maslow sled and met-Z setup. Win win. Funnny thing is waiting for that now spare part, and not even here and I accomplished what I wanted to which was get that spindle automated…so I am stoked. Everyone wins we saw Jon’s setup, which now baseline to match, I need to re-work mine to get that pi within 6 inches and make just as clean…and hopefully soon I can run a test part with the router 
BTW, spare parts…I am the king of “spare parts” I have spare parts up the wazoo, and now getting a Maslow section up there too Soon I will get there, I have a feeling!
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for now, i would suggest mounting the pi temporarily near the arduino to test that the short cable and the other changes you made do the trick.
Thanks Jon, that is the game plan…still waiting in the super short 6 in cable but have one under 6 feet for now (I think 3 feet). Going to run a test this morning, sled only while I do my regular job. If no issues can only get better with the 6 inch cord right. Thanks :). Let you know how it goes…
Watching the video on using the Goto buttons and all that. What I am unclear of is this: if my sled needed the chains reset, which we know I performed. If I took a screen shot of my last known position when signal was lost (which I did the other day). Even though I moved home back to center when reset chains, is there a way to move home to the exact coordinates in my screen shot (not manually trying to dial in with buttons, like type exact coordinates in or something like that) THEN Goto a certain certain line of code to pick back up? What not clear in is if home moved, can it really find it again with my coordinates that I can I type in versus trying to micro move sled to that position? I did keep Gcode loaded in was not wiped, as I hear that may be a issue trying this even with same gcode.
In my understanding of the “home” setting (please someone correct me if I am wrong), that once you set that, it is set until you then change again. So in theory, if you had it set, and then it “lost position” and you had to reset the chains, then you can tell it to move to your home position (clicking the center Home button in the in the middle of all the directional arrows) that you set, and then re-run your gcode for your project. With the GoTo function the @Orob talks about, if you had a screen shot of where it was in the gcode, you can then jump to that part of the code and “resume” your cut. I have had varying degrees of success (or lack of) in using the GoTo portion, so I have just started the cut again and it would run through where it has already cut, but I didn’t lose the piece of ply I was cutting in the first place. I did notice on a couple of projects I have done where that happened, that my home position was slightly off (maybe 1-2mm -ish??) but for what I was cutting, that really didn’t affect the outcome. With you using this to make your arcade cabinets, that may be something to consider with how precise you need the cuts to be so everything fits together properly.
I agree with the precautions of rerunning the project after a partial cut. I am less certain about the behavior of the home location you describe. I thought once you reset your chains, the home position went back to absolute home, but I don’t know I have ever tested it looking for that. I try to avoid resetting chain if possible.
Thank you both for the replies! Yeah I figured once you set home to any coordinate, that is all it remembered…except once reset you always know center, so you make it home as well. At least I have been during all my tests. I am want to try to rerun the code, the problem is all I know is my home coordinates from that screen shot, but besides micro moving sled once I get close to that spot I started the cut (that bone position) not sure I can get the sled in the same exact spot.
I think should of Reset chains so Maslow knew where center was again, and should not have also moved home back to center. I think screwed myself by doing that. I had to step away for a few hours unexpectedly, but may see if can find home again once I test to if I lose UsB connection again. I just wasn’t sure if you could type I the exact values of the old home position and then tell sled to go there without trying to find it using the controllers. You know what I mean? I technically lost my hone position when I changed home
Back to center…stupid on my part if wanted to try running again
Jon/Orob, so far so good…I am about 20% into a test run (sled only, no router). I have the shorter USB cable from arduino to pi. Also entered that code to make sure no hybernation on the pi. Fingers crossed she keeps going w/ no USB disconnect.
darnit, I did what we thought would solve the issue, and Maslow still had USB disconnect 17.4% in!! Any ideas what to try next? I still have 5.5 foot cable on there, but the new one (its under 6 feet). Do you really think 6 in will make that difference? I can move the pi if need to, just figured under 6 foot would be ok and would move AFTER the test. uhhhg 
Sorry. That has to be super frustrating. I’m out of ideas other than changing the host computer (rpi 3) or changing the arduino (amazon?). My pi4 is so far the least reliable of all the rpis I own (6). Can you check the rpi system log and find the reconnect event for the arduino?
The arduino is set up so when the usb enumerates (connects) it reboots. Not every usb device does that and arduino has its place, however, that is one thing I don’t like about it because if the connection is lost, rather than pause until it reconnects, it reboots. That might be one thing I would envision changing.
Thanks Orob, not your fault, you all have given me ideas I would not have thought about trying. There is a spot in Webcontrol, something about connect or idle, I may have that set wrong and forgot to check. You think that could be an issue before I change things out? I “think” not sure, I have a spare arduino…I do have a spare pi4 as well, so last resort will do that. Maybe I will move that pi super close like Jon. Do you think its possible the pi4 for is running too hard? She is up at 70-80% on the CPU according to Webcontrol, maybe it spikes and do not know? If you recall I have pi4 as a service and also displaying to that monitor I mounted to the frame. I am going to get my son, I want to see if can find this section I am referring to with reconnecting to webcontrol, maybe it may make more sense what I mean…
of course my kid is in the middle of a tournament with his buddies! I will try to find this myself, I just forget where in the process I saw this…let me see if can find.
Orob, one more quick questions before I look for this on the pi… I am not 100% sure it got jammed, I do not think it did…but is it possible if the chain gets even the slightest bit of pressure before releasing could that cause this error? Check out my chain…
I would disable and stop the webcontrol service and start webcontrol by command line in an ssh window from a laptop or your viewing computer. Take out the router bit and then restart/play the cut and watch from the console as the sled runs the cut. Screenshot it if/ when it fails. Don’t close the ssh window or webcontrol will stop. You will then need to reenable the webcontrol service.
now it will get past it that is why I rounded everything…BUT that is with me manually moving it that I KNOW it does, have not watched or seen if ever got hung up while actually cutting.
ok I will try this, and you know I think this is where Anthony changed a value from reconnect if idle to NO. Or something like that. So basically undo the service, launch from command line…See if times out, got it! Thank you will do this. Check out those pics, I do not think its an issue, but its odd how that chain was exactly on the corner of that wood, like I tapped ever so lightly and it sprung up to clear it. Also been running NO router in general, but wondering if that part of the locking mechanism on the base of the Rigid was adding too much drag on the channel of the router base. Do you know what I mean? Also thank you Orob, you are giving me hope here!!!
see and that was odd, I went to get my mouse (gone 4 mins), I had already clicked to start putty, but did not…message came up about sudden disconnect (which would be the Pi)…not arduino. Maybe it was coincidence. Hope it is not my internet cutting in and out, I have an expensive mesh network in my house and own my modem. Just did it again! Same message…maybe it is a putty thing? The error for Putty says “remote side unexpectedly closed network connection”