I’ve been having a lot of issues with my long mill and haven’t really had great customer service along the way. I put a ticket in probably a week ago and sent in the diagnostic file , pictures and videos of what my machine is doing. Anybody else have this issue with customer service?
No.
So what is the problem with your longboard or gsender?
I have had a number of issues since day one and cannot pin point the cause. 1st issue is that I was preforming a surfacing pass with the provided bit that came with the beginners kit. The router drove into the board doing a conventional pass and damaged the router which you have replaced already. 2nd issue is the gsender port disconnects at random times during a job but not every job. This issue does not occur when jogging the machine around the work surface. 3rd issue is that the jobs I have completed in carve co maker look correct in the simulation and has always been consistent but once machines are incorrect. Start points on the same job are not consistent, one time it will start for example on the outside of a project and the next it will start from carving in the center. 4th problem is that the green light is on showing it’s in motion but is not. Hard reset needed to connect and jog around again. 5th issue I have is that the machine sounds really rough when the listed issues above happen, along with exaggerated musical sounds
I’ve had problems with random disconnects and after months of devicing work arounds I found out my usb cable that came with the longmill was wonky. I replaced it and had no more troubles after that. Do you have a replacememt one lying around (old printers have them) you could try, to see if the disconnects can be solved with it?
I can pick one up to try , what’s better a longer cord or shorter. I’ve also read that some people were having these issues with a bad SLB and it was replaced by scienci labs.
Best is to have a filtered one, with shielding and beads on both sides.
Oh, you have an slb, I thought you opened with having a longboard, meaning in essence your machine would have been an older model, like the one I have. If you not have an extra usb cable, maybe you can connect via eth cable, even if only to see if you can run your mill without disconnects via that route. USB can be a pain if power management does not prevent to let it go to sleep. Make sure your usb stays awake at all time in your pc settings, or it will bite you.
Well, I think you are correct to try to contact scienci and find real costumer service. I know the frustration behind having a rando disconnect machine that keeps effin up yer plans for the day. If the usb settings and cable tests don’t help with the disconnects, you can look here for other known quick fixes. (Prolly the first thing they tell you to do when you get answer on your ticket anyway.)
But you nééd to get help from the experts, while you try to pinpoint the source of your problems.
I have worked at costumer service and repair of a large electronic company and it can get hectic at those positions. If you at first seem to cannot get through, don’t give up.
You might have just slipped into the gaps of a very bussy day.
I personal think your main issue is the disconnects that cascade into others, but weird sounds is not good either.
Anyhow, when contacting sienci again, make sure to use their contact page:
Write a summary of your setup, to give the smartie something to work with from the start without having to reach right back out to ask questions. They’re human, and when hectic, the ones that can keep you at work will be the ones that get the first to be handled. So sumary of your setup.
If you have it, your order number that is tied to your machine. Everything is tracked and traced, and if there are known bad batches of any components, it is connected via this number. It will help a techy (and you) greatly to have this number available in a ticket.
Though the tech can now find your setup, it can help to mention the rest of your machine setup for cross reverence. So
Order number of your machine
LongMill MK (fill in your version)
Slb connected via usb
Add ons like sensors, touch plate, laser unit, spindle, router, dust collection.
What you use to control your setup with: pc, apple, raspb, etc.
What system runs on that machine: windowsxx, apple os, linux, etc
Possible special setup, like for example extra long usb cable connection the machine to a pc in another room. Vertical setup, grounding, dedicated outlet, anything else.
Summary of your problems: Random disconnects, weird singing sounds, irratic movement that caused a router its life.
Summary of your tried solutions: for example, walked through troubleshoot page slb, replaced usb cable, connected via eth etc. Or if you are not able to troubleshoot anything, because you don’t know where to begin or something, say so here.
Visual aids like photographs, movies, logs.
I’m sure that if you format your ticket as usefull as possible for the tech, it will help to mitigate a few extra question rounds before help can be offered. Try to keep your frustration out of the ticket. Allthough understandable, it does not add anything to getting closer to a solution.
Save your ticket into word for you to find back.
Be patience, 2 to 5 workdays is the promise. Weekends and Canadian holydays are not included in that timeframe. Give them 7 workdays before following up on this one.
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@Jordan2500 Can you confirm which controller you are using, please? Your title mentions “long board”, your post mention “SLB” and back in 2023 when you were having some issues, you mentioned that you were using the “open builds” controller.
You may get better advice here, while waiting for tech support, if you post the gcode for the projects that are starting in different locations. On the face of it, that sounds like you have set your XY0 in different locations in your CAD/CAM software, or not set the in the same location in gSender as in that application.
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I’m unable to upload the diagnostic report on here but I ran a new simple toolpath that is a circle and a square and it ran with no problem, didn’t disconnect and ran the gcode in the correct order. Does doing a longer job cause problems for some people ? I did this one on my computer not laptop and used the cord that came with my machine.
What controller do you have Jordan?
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The super long board that came with the mill bigginers kit. I’m going to try some longer jobs to see if I have any disconnects and see it it follows the simulation correctly
I ran another simple v carve and it failed. Disconnected within 10 seconds and the yellow light is on the slb. Can anybody tell me what their machine sounds like when it’s doing a job with the router off. Still get highly exaggerated musical sounds from the mill and sounds right on one job but not the other thanks everyone
I ran a new file a couple nights ago in space where I did everything in mm on carve co. No disconnects and ran the whole file. Yesterday i ran it with. some material with my shop vac and about 1 minutes into the job it disconnected and said port error. Did it again with just the router running and it stopped a little further along but still with in a couple minutes. With having basically the same issues as my first cnc which I thought was just a bad machine could this be pointed in the Static/ slight power dip. There is a noticeable amount of static in my shop. My entire cnc setup is plugged into power bars and surge protectors.
Any and all suggestions welcome.