The maslow has a very weak wifi interface (possibly due to the very noisy router
right next to the board), as a result, many people find that it’s connection to
a home network is unreliable unless there is a router very close to the machine.
This is why you will see people suggesting that you switch back to the default
where the maslow provides the network.
when the maslow is providing the network, there can still be issues. The network
that the maslow provides does not connect to the Internet, and some
systems/browsers think that a network that doesn’t provide Internet access is
broken, and you have to tell them that you really do want to use it (and it
soemtimes takes some significant convincing)
Brief thread hijack… Is there a possibility to add wifi antenna on the
board to try and increase range / reliability?
this would require using a different esp32 module mounted on the bottom of the
main board. it would either be a special order or somene swapping the module.
It looks like somehow the index.html file which sets how the interface looks got deleted. You can use the “chose files” option there to upload it. You should pick the version which matches your firmware version.
You can also upload the latest version via USB cable and that will wipe everything back to factory settings.
I was experiencing some of these issues, as well. Some things that helped me are:
When my Maslow first gets powered up, it takes about 5-10 minutes to generate it’s own wifi network called “Maslow”. This can seem like nothing is happening or something is wrong, because you won’t see the Maslow in you Network Tab right away. When the network comes up, you have to manually connect to “maslow” and provide the network password (12345678) if you haven’t changed it. After you manually connect, you may lose the connection later. If so, I had to unplug the Maslow and plug it back in to reset it. Then I had to go through the Retract All-Extend All-Apply Tension sequence to get my machine positioning back. You will need to finish calibration to get you machine positioning (X0Y0). My calibration took over 3 hours so you my have to be very patient and don’t run your router during calibration.
Maintaining connection to the machine. Sometimes the connection to Maslow is weak or spotty. Not much you can do in this case except wait until it gets stronger. If you have a good connection there are things you can do inside FireFox to keep the connection to the machine for more that 5 or 10 minutes. It will help if you have a dedicated laptop or notebook used only for your Maslow, because you don’t want to have undo everything after you run you Maslow. Go into your FireFox “Settings” tab and set your homepage as the numerical address of the Maslow. I believe its 192.168.0.1 . Go through all the settings tabs and uncheck all the search engines. Uncheck most of the other boxes as well. You don’t want your browser to get distracted by trying to connect to other networks or ping other websites. Uncheck any report to Microsoft, or Mozilla, or Google. Try to get Firefox to focus only on Maslow and nothing else.
Hopefully this will buy enough time to finish the calibration. Also, I had to set the retraction force in the configuration tab to 1500 to assure all the belts would tighten during configuration and apply tension.
These are just a few suggestions that seemed to help me. I hope they can help you as well!
From experience it won’t ever have a solid connection. I’ve been dealing with this since purchasing the machine 2 months ago. There really isn’t any remedy. The software doesn’t know if the machine is connected or not.
That seems odd. Although it could be a faulty board, network connections are usually dropped by the client device. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of factors that can lead to this. I would go through it this way. This is based on working as an IT-consultant/technician for 20+ years, but I do not have any specialization in networking as such.
With regards to the title of this topic, it will not fix the issue of the maslow network not appearing.
Are you connected directly to the Maslow in AP mode?
To avoid any interference from your IOT devices’ and/or your household members constant nagging and need for bandwidth. You should connect directly to the Maslow.
Does the maslow network drop out from the list of available networks when you lose connection?
If yes, do you see it disappearing from the list on other devices at the same time? Mobile, TV or other computers with WiFi. If it does, I would do a factory reset before asking for a replacement.
How have you set up your PC?
How far away from the machine?
If running windows. Check the network profile of your connection. It should be set to “private”. If it’s “public”, change it to “private”.
Power Management Settings: Laptops may disable WiFi to save power, especially when on battery.
Roaming Between APs: Disable automatic connection to every other network.
How many neighbouring WiFi networks do you have in your vicinity?
It’s been two months. Two months of attempting to make it work. I’m pretty much at my limit not only in time but patience. It’s just a faulty design. A few can get it to work, while most can’t even finish calibration.
Don’t give up Juan! My previous CNC router took me every bit of 4 years to get working!! Crazy right?! Turned out they sent me a bad arduino board! It worked great for a year or two, but finally died. I think this 4.1 will be a much better machine. There is just a steep learning curve if you are not familiar with this technology.
Keep taking breaks when it frustrates you and walk away from it. That’s why it took me 4 years! I would walk away for months at a time, but I wasn’t going to let an inanimate object beat me. In the end I was successful!
I’m not the least bit concerned about this 4.1, there is a solution I just need to keep digging till I find it. One day it will all click.
Keep after it and don’t lose hope! At some point it will click and all make sense! Every time you tinker with it you will absolutely learn something positive and negative! All these little pieces will eventually connect and a light build will go off.
It will work out. Keep a positive mindset!
It seems we have a lot of people on this forum that want to see everyone that owns one of these to be successful using it!!
I appreciate the kind words but they can only go so far. This machine and peripherals were not cheap (near $1000 in total costs), 2 months of time (4 year for you), are things we cannot get back. Sadly, it sounded like this product was somewhat functional, but it seems the retails buyers have become the alpha testers.
It more of a disappointment than frustration. It’s a trend with companies small and large, selling unfinished, untested products and services only to have the end users be the testers. Some will get a working prototype (that’s all this is at this point), some will simply eat the cost and have nothing to show for it.
I can understand the frustration, but calling it a prototype at this point is just being unfair. Look back 7-8 years and I’ll agree. That’s why I followed the project until it seemed feasable for my needs.
Noone is making money on this product at this point. I bet the few people that run this project has had their fair share of frustration too. 2 months seems like a long time to struggle with calibration. It could be a faulty board if everything above is checked. Try a Linux PC to see if that helps.
If you have done any research before spending your money on a Maslow, you should know it for what it is. Nowhere have I seen it advertised as a finished product either. It’s a project, not a product. Is it possible to make a fairly cheap, large format CNC for small workshops and hobbyists? I think it is.
Compared to any commercial, large format machine, unless you are an educated machinist, this is child’s play and at less than 10% the price of the cheapest one you can get.
Everyone on this forum are eager to help with issues, but to do that, we need as much information as possible.
I’m glad to help when I have the time, but please have some respect for the few that have made this at all possible.
