Port changes on me

[eklug]

Sometimes if our shopbot has a connection error or the program freezes and it has to be closed and opened back up again, when it opens back up the port it trys to connect to will have changed from 3 or 4 (the usb ports)to 1. We dont use 1 and have never used 1. It is an easy fix but our operators dont know about it and didnt remember from the last time it happened. This has happened at least twice. The most recent time was on saturday and it also happened on July 30. I wasnt around since it was on a saturday. So the shopbot was down all day saturday and most of the morning today. They had maintenance men working on it and changed the cables and fiddled with the control box and did everything under the sun to get it running. All it was was the port #. Two questions...

1. Why do you have to tell the program where the bot is connected? Why cant it find it on its own?
2. Why does the port change from what we set it on to a wrong port all by its self?

[Brady Watson]

Emily,
I don't know the answer to question #1, but to answer your 2nd question, it is most likely because you have another device on the same USB bridge as the ShopBot. This is most likely a keyboard or mouse, and this has been known to cause disconnects.

If you want to eliminate this problem, go buy a USB PCI card and put it in any free PCI slot that you have on your computer. I bought a Belkin brand card from Staples (make sure it is 2.0 spec) and then I plugged a 2.0 USB hub into one of the USB ports coming out of the Belkin. The port never changes and I never have a hang up because the USB bridge is no longer sharing with any other devices.

-B