[MFchief]

Hi All,

In case anyone has been waiting, the Path Pilot wireless adapters are back in stock at Tormach.

Terry

[popspipes]

Thanks Terry,
I am going to get one ordered.
thanks for the info

[wtopace]

I ordered this one (looked to be the same as Tormach's) and it has been working flawlessly for me, plug and play.

Edimax EW 7811UN N150 USB 2 0 Wireless Nano Adapter 4710700927168 | eBay

[CNC-Dude]

I ordered this one (looked to be the same as Tormach's) and it has been working flawlessly for me, plug and play.

Edimax EW 7811UN N150 USB 2 0 Wireless Nano Adapter 4710700927168 | eBay

I also bought this when I got into Raspberi Pi's so I decided to give it a try this morning and VOILA! It works like a charm.

BTW, I bought it on Amazon, but it is the same price as the eBay one.

[popspipes]

I ordered this one (looked to be the same as Tormach's) and it has been working flawlessly for me, plug and play.

Edimax EW 7811UN N150 USB 2 0 Wireless Nano Adapter 4710700927168 | eBay

I received mine today, I have tried to get it installed and no luck, it is the Tormach vrsion. I think a call to Tormach is in order for tomorrow.

[CNC-Dude]

Are you sure you followed the instructions to the micron? Any change in the text fields and it is not going to work. I had to go through the PDF at least 10 times before I got it to work. Every slash (\), every name, directory and password counts.

Installing this feature brought me back to the 1990's, DOS and Windows 3.11, heh heh heh.

[popspipes]

Are you sure you followed the instructions to the micron? Any change in the text fields and it is not going to work. I had to go through the PDF at least 10 times before I got it to work. Every slash (\), every name, directory and password counts.

Installing this feature brought me back to the 1990's, DOS and Windows 3.11, heh heh heh.

I agree with you there!
I connected the TV to the internet a year or so ago, and it was a nightmare too, after 3 or 4 days I finally got it to work.
I tried installing the software from the cd, that didnt work either, I am sure its a setting somewhere. Ubuntu/Linux isnt as user friendly as windows but it sure runs the the machine without worry of it doing something uncalled for!

[wtopace]

I agree with you there!
I connected the TV to the internet a year or so ago, and it was a nightmare too, after 3 or 4 days I finally got it to work.
I tried installing the software from the cd, that didnt work either, I am sure its a setting somewhere. Ubuntu/Linux isnt as user friendly as windows but it sure runs the the machine without worry of it doing something uncalled for!

If you can elaborate on any configuration you have done and the current situation you're in (error messages, troubleshooting you have done, etc...), I would be happy to try to help in any way I can. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Tormach's instructions yet, but I can poke around for them. If anyone has the link handy, that might help.

[CNC-Dude]

If you can elaborate on any configuration you have done and the current situation you're in (error messages, troubleshooting you have done, etc...), I would be happy to try to help in any way I can. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Tormach's instructions yet, but I can poke around for them. If anyone has the link handy, that might help.

This is the link: Direct Document and Software Download | Tormach Inc. providers of personal small CNC machines, CNC tooling, and many more CNC items.

The problem is you don't get much of an error message you can debug on other than the Windows system telling you that the mapped drive is not accessible. On the PP controller, there is no way to find the wireless router. You need to know all the SSID information and type it in correctly. It will not tell you whether you succeeded or whether the settings are correct or not.

It requires lots and lots of patience, not to mention faith. It is practically a religion in itself! OHHH Wirelethium! Behold your might and allow us to connect without much effort... heh heh heh

Luckily, there is plenty of us to testify that it does work! So, yes, it should work.

I just remembered something that might help. Once you configure the SSID on PP, open up the router control panel on another computer. If you see Tormach as one of the Wireless connections, at least you know that part is set and now all you need to do is configure the Windows mapped drive.

Good luck!

[popspipes]

I talked to John at Tormach and he was very helpful indeed!

The main problem was that I had the adapter plugged into a 6 foot usb cable, turns out they dont like long cables, plugged it into the machine and it worked. That was the simple part, then on the other conmputer I had to set up paths, home networking and on and on, at my age that isnt an easy task when you arent familiar with it!!
I closed the metal door on the machine computer and now its not working again, so I am going to move the computer to a shelf outside the machine, the range should be better and I can get to the computer without having to get on the floor etc.
I will have to figure out how to transfer a tap file thru the new setup to the machine, that may take some time.......

I think some major moving components and it should work OK.

I sure wish they would get the usb icons converted to a list then things would be much easier for me thats for sure......

Thanks for the help offers guys, but i dont know enough about this to ask an intelligent question yet.

[wtopace]

No worries, it sounds like you're doing great so far.

Since I normally CM control all of my g-code just like my real computer code I write, I went ahead and wrote a cron job on my mill to pull down any updates every minute. This process is working great for me, I just make my g-code edits (or post a g-code file from Sprutcam), commit changes to SVN and the mill automatically grabs the latest copy. Best of all for any non-software people out there, every commit creates a new version of each file you modified, so you retain all previous versions as well... this way when a mill slams into the vise, you can do a "diff" with the previous g-code to see what happened.

The setup isn't trivial and would require poking at the underlying Ubuntu, but if you guys would like to try it, I can put a detailed guide with screenshots together to post. It sure beats carrying a usb drive back and forth and in my opinion is far better than drag and drop.

[shred]

I post to the machine share... works great as long as the PP is powered up.

[kstrauss]

The setup isn't trivial and would require poking at the underlying Ubuntu, but if you guys would like to try it, I can put a detailed guide with screenshots together to post. It sure beats carrying a usb drive back and forth and in my opinion is far better than drag and drop.

Yes, please! That would be greatly appreciated.

[bevinp]

Wtopace,
Another "Yes please ".
Thanks

[CNC-Dude]

I closed the metal door on the machine computer and now its not working again, so I am going to move the computer to a shelf outside the machine, the range should be better and I can get to the computer without having to get on the floor etc.

Yup! The stand is basically a Faraday Cage. There is no way the little dongle has enough power to go through that.

I keep on wondering why is it that we can't use a powered USB hub. We could wire this out of the "cage" and then connect all sorts of USB dongles to it. Think Wifi, Keyboard and mouse. The only wired device would be the shuttle pro.

[wtopace]

Yup! The stand is basically a Faraday Cage. There is no way the little dongle has enough power to go through that.

I keep on wondering why is it that we can't use a powered USB hub. We could wire this out of the "cage" and then connect all sorts of USB dongles to it. Think Wifi, Keyboard and mouse. The only wired device would be the shuttle pro.

I would think a powered USB hub would be fine with PathPilot since it is a true realtime OS, you should give it a try and let us know if you have any problems =) (I wouldn't expect any)

- - - Updated - - -

Wtopace,
Another "Yes please ".
Thanks

Sure thing! I'll work on getting something written up with pictures and screenshots this weekend.

[popspipes]

Yup! The stand is basically a Faraday Cage. There is no way the little dongle has enough power to go through that.

I keep on wondering why is it that we can't use a powered USB hub. We could wire this out of the "cage" and then connect all sorts of USB dongles to it. Think Wifi, Keyboard and mouse. The only wired device would be the shuttle pro.

Yes it is a super shielded cage, SHF doesnt operate well inside a metal cage, it does work but with greatly reduced signal strength.
Also my charter high speed internet service is in and out here the last few weeks, they are upgrading their services and working on the system, thats a problem also.

[shred]

I use a powered USB hub and it works well enough, but they can get 'hung up' by nearby electrical noise (eg: TIG welder HF start). Unpowered hubs are typically worse...

Tormach said they don't approve of hubs because of the issues they had with Windows and Mach but are hoping to change that with PP once they get some more experience. Especially since the controller doesn't have enough ports for everything if you load the system up with scanner, touchscreen, keyboard, mouse, jog shuttle, network, memory port and so on.

A short USB extension to get the wireless dongle outside the stand metal box would probably work ok as well. The long ones are a lot more iffy unless powered and then they are basically 1-port hubs anyway.

[Gilmax]

I ordered this one (looked to be the same as Tormach's) and it has been working flawlessly for me, plug and play.

Edimax EW 7811UN N150 USB 2 0 Wireless Nano Adapter 4710700927168 | eBay

Just to confirm. That's exactly what I received from Tormach but mine cost 5$ more...

[popspipes]

I installed the wireless adapter on a usb cable so I could run it outside of the cabinet, the wireless adapter worked fine, the signal was almost 100%, The problem with it was the other usb port that I use for programs would not work?? I removed the wireless adapter and it started working again, I assume it was introducing noise on the other usb cable that was in close proximity to it and kept it from working normally.

I am thinking maybe a large cutout in the door, and install a lexan window in it may work?? Maybe increase the signal strength due to the plastic window and still keep the crud out??