Commissioning - cannot talk to Due

Hi DC42,
I liked the first Cyprus link which is also in the allaboutcircuits link I posted.
There are also links to other semiconductor manufacturers included below which could also provide some useful info.

- “Tying the shield directly to ground would create a direct path
from the ground plane to the shield, turning the USB cable into
an antenna. To limit the USB cable antenna effect, it is
recommended to connect the shield and ground through an RC
filter. Typically, R = 1MΩ and C = 4.7nF in Figure 3-5.”
Atmel AVR1017: XMEGA - USB Hardware Design Recommendations. Section 3.3.3 (p. 8).
[atmel.com]

- “Place a ferrite in series with the cable shield pins near the
USB connector socket to keep EMI from getting onto the cable
shield.”
Texas Instruments Application Report. USB 2.0 Board Design and Layout Guidelines. Sec 2.2.4 (p. 3).
[www.ti.com]

- Connect shield to signal ground with 0.01 µF to 0.47 µF capacitor.
FTDI. Debugging FT232BM and FT245BM Designs. Section 3.2 (p. 11).
[www.ftdichip.com]

@Ian, as far as I can see on the PCB artwork the DUET screen is open circuit. As per the above documents and DC42 comments there should not be a direct short circuit, but and RC combination, but I leave it to your electronics team to decide.

... and then there is the network connector!

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Ormerod #007 (shaken but not stirred!)

Ello.

Just took out the board to check the usb port. Its soldered 2 out of 4 points. Is that enough to cause problems?

@dc42. Yeah its set to the correct board. Havnt tried other settings than newline yet. Wanna find out if its the hardware thats the prob first.

Btw, i really appreciate the help here.

Best regards
john

Hi jpp,

Ian has answered your USB solder question here:

Quote
reprappro
Another problem we have just spotted... All Duet boards have been supplied with only two of the four USB lugs soldered. Some have been supplied with none of them soldered! This can make the USB connection electrically unstable, and makes it much easier to pull the USB socket off the board. Please carefully solder up all four pins. I'll be adding this to the documentation (along with the long-awaited troubleshooting...) at the weekend, hopefully.

All subsequent boards should have all four lugs solder up. I think someone else pointed this out in an earlier thread, but it got lost in the noise!

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

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RS-Online Ormerod #263, Kossel mini with Minitronics, Prusa i3 MK2

Thx 3D-ES.

I'll give it a try

Best regards
john

For those of you who are experiencing the same problems as me here is an update. I have had success in communicating with my Duet !!
I am running windows 7 64bit
Firstly I believe the drivers had not installed correctly due to some of the issues already mentioned and my security settings interfering with the installation. I had tried to communicate in many different USB ports with the same results. However, this constant changing of ports, reflashing firmware etc had resulted in a number of so called Ghost devices being installed on my laptop.
These devices CAN NOT be seen in device manager even when you select "Show hidden devices". Here is a link how to remove these devices [www.howtogeek.com]

After I removed all those old ghost devices Arduino IDE was up and running. Of course the SECOND problem was that pronterface wouldn't run. THIS was because the SD card supplied seemed to read fine when sending M503 but it had been too slow to be read on bootup. Result was that the board was not in marlin mode and hence unable to talk to pronterface. To test this simply load up Arduino IDE and send the command M555 P2 which should select marlin mode, then try pronterface and if this works buy a new SD card as I did and the problem was solved.

Sadly I am not out of the woods as after all the above my printer would suddenly drop offline randomly after a while. This of course turned out to be a faulty USB connector so Ian is sending me a replacement board.

Cant wait to get my new board cos it was just getting exciting !!. Hope these notes help someone out there.

Well actually there are about 9 pins on that USB connector...

There 4 outer pins which was the ones that wasn't soldered on mine which is the ground/shield which holds and supports the connector on the board.
There are a further 5 pins for the VBUS/VCC (+5V from PC), D-, D+, ID (can be N/C, GND or ID) and Ground (0V) these on mine was ok, not too sure if I had solder splatter on a few of these pins.
But I had to push the connector firmly onto the board and hold it down with a crocodile clip while I soldered the 4 pins of the USB case and then to clean up the USB's 5 pins.

Paul

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RS Ormerod No 436

@Ian
reprappro
Another problem we have just spotted... All Duet boards have been supplied with only two of the four USB lugs soldered. Some have been supplied with none of them soldered! This can make the USB connection electrically unstable, and makes it much easier to pull the USB socket off the board. Please carefully solder up all four pins. I'll be adding this to the documentation (along with the long-awaited troubleshooting...) at the weekend, hopefully.

Are there any instructions/pictures anywhere?
Greg

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Ormerod #17

@GregL

Look at this picture: [www.reprappro.com]
You can actually see that there's no solder on the USB connector! It's the holes above and below the connector, and the two small ones either side of the actual tracks that go into the left side of the connector. It's easiest to see from the back of the board; there are four vias (holes through the PC, and easier to solder from this side too.

The two holes under the SD card are just location holes, and DO NOT need to be soldered. Check all the ethernet connector pins are soldered too.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2014 02:32PM by droftarts.

Hi ,


Same problem here, but just solved about minutes ago. Bad USB cable !


Ew

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2014 03:08AM by tru168.

Yep, soldering the USB lugs may not be enough. I had to press the socket onto the board whilst sweating the four joints. After that the USB came online. This also made the usb mating connector/cable a tight fit. Once it is in never remove it - disconnect the cable at the PC end.

Note that the USB red led was lit even though the comms. link was broken.

I can't see how the Duet ever passed USB manufacturing test - Not happy about the poor quality and having to fix manufacturing faults.

Quote
davidsmith_uk
I can't see how the Duet ever passed USB manufacturing test - Not happy about the poor quality and having to fix manufacturing faults.

It may well have passed the manufacturing test. When SMD pads are not soldered, they often still make sufficient contact to pass the factory test, but later contact is lost due to movement or oxidation and the board no longer works. It is something that can only be picked up by a good visual inspection. Unfortunately BGA pads (or any component where the pads are hidden cannot be visually inspected) really require an X-Ray inspection which is seldom carried out on every board due to cost. It is the reason why there have been so many failures of expensive video games consoles over the past couple of years, which can often be brought to life by re-flowing the CPU and graphics BGA chips with a hot air blower (best if you run liquid flux under the parts first - and wash it out afterwards). You cannot reflow the entire board because it has since had plastic components fitted that would melt in a standard reflow oven. I hate BGA for that reason, but unfortunately there are often no suitable substitutes. At least the Duet doesn't have any such devices - horrible things!

Dave
(#106)

Bad design perhaps, which has been commented elsewhere about this style of USB socket.

Quote
davidsmith_uk
Bad design perhaps, which has been commented elsewhere about this style of USB socket.

A while ago I purchased a device (mains power monitor) that had the same type of USB socket. It fell off a desk onto the carpet, and that was sufficient to sheer off the USB socket completely - very weak design. My solution was to cut the plug off the USB cable and solder the wires directly to the appropriate (broken) tracks that went to the socket. A similar frig would no doubt work on the Duet if you don't mind having a fixed USB cable hanging from the board - just figure out a way to provide strain relief so the cable is not hanging from the soldered wires, otherwise you'll pull the tracks off the board one day.

Dave
(#106)