AXBB-E slow to connect. Is there some windows setting I can

[Greolt]

When starting up UCCNC on my plasma, which has an AXBB-E controller, I get the device selection panel.

I must wait for 15 or more seconds after powering up the AXBB-E before starting UCCNC or it will not see it.

Thinking there may be some setting or setup issue in windows that will make the Ethernet connection faster.

Once connected, I have no other issue with Ethernet communication. No delays or glitches.

Some very smart people on this forum and thought I might get some advice.

Thanks in advance.

[Greolt]

OK maybe a better question might be;

Others using AXBB-E,
do you need to power up the AXBB-E well before starting UCCNC
or does yours connect quickly?

[ger21]

I haven't used mine yet, but my suggestion would be to power up the AXBB-E when the computer starts. Turn on the power to the control, and have the PC start when power is applied.
You can have UCCNC set to auto start with Windows, and I would expect it to be able to connect by then?

[Greolt]

Thanks Gerry

Workarounds are what I have had to resort to since the beginning.

I was hoping there may be some setting or such that would alleviate the need for workarounds.

[Robertspark]

I don't have an ABXX-E. ( but opinions are like .... everyone has one... )

The motion controller will take a time to boot, load its firmware initialise the ethernet connection, determine the interface connection speeds and setup it's IP address + send some initial packets back and forth to the device its communicating with.

I am not saying this will WILL work as I have no idea, but part of the setup is the two devices deciding on the network speed etc.....

It "may" help if you set the options on the PC to limit the negotiation choices between the devices to speed up the connection arrangement

Solutions 7 and 8 may help you in this post

https://windowsreport.com/fix-slow-lan-speed-pc/

the others may help too.... (I have no idea, I normally turn my cabinet on first, then the PC so by the time its booted (fast boot from SSD) and I've logged on the devices are all happy with each other).

I'd suggest changing one at a time and see if it helps / improves things..... obviously if connections drop out or don't connect then you know what to unchange.... a good quality Ethernet cable may help too (after the network has been running a while you can have a look at the lost packets count which may tell you if the cable / connection is poor)

https://www.pcwdld.com/how-to-test-pack ... on-windows
(sure there are other similar posts / walkthroughs for you to check out too).
Maybe give the motion controller a dummy file to run for an hour on repeat (add an M98 P L ) then check for lost packets, think the only thing you could to is change the ethernet cable to improve the number of lost packets. I expect its normal to loose some, but what an acceptable number is I have no idea. They will just be resent from the PC / motion controller to replace the ones with errors so no cnc motion will actually be lost. Increasing / decreasing the buffer can improve or worsen the situation.

Extract from the users manual (I've never fiddled with its default setting):
Communication buffer size: This parameter sets the length of the USB communication buffer. The parameter is in seconds. The shorter the buffer is the faster the machine will react to button presses. The minimum set value is 0.05seconds(50milliseconds) and the longest is 0.5seconds(500mseconds). Because the motion core of the software is running in a special high priority loop in our testings we found that 0.1seconds (100milliseconds) buffer length is enough in all cases and we recommend to leave this parameter at this value, but we left the ability to change this setting for the most flexibility of the software.

Note: suspect it will also apply to ethernet communication too..... given it too needs to go into a buffer to be sent and received.

[Greolt]

Thanks Rob

I will work through those options and see if there is improvement.

[cncdrive]

A computer network is complex, it is not as simple as you powering a device up and it is ready to communicate on the network.
For example if the DHCP option is enabled then the AXBB-E first has to request an IP from the host which is the computer in this case.
It has to ask the computer for an IP and the computer has to tell what IP it can use, then it has to tell the computer that OK I got the IP and I'm ready to use it and configure itself for the network etc.
This takes time, it is not a matter of our controller, but it is due to complexity of computer networking.

15 seconds sounds a bit much though after powering the AXBB-E up, but 5-10 seconds is usual.

[cncdrive]

Rob,

Yes, controller booting also takes a bit time, because first the bootloader code executes and it reads the whole program memory, it CRC calculates and runs the firmware code only if that is OK.

[cncdrive]

You could possibly lower the power up time if disabling the DHCP and using fix IP.

[Greolt]

Have tried a few of the above suggestions.

Got it to about 7 or 8 seconds that the link LED goes solid after powering the AXBB-E.

I guess that is about as good as I can expect.