Having trouble communicating with with control panel.

[upserman]

My old computer I used with my Shopbot went south yesterday. I decided to use a my lap top. I used my start up disk to load Shopbot control softwear and down loaded the newer updates from the website. I aslo have a usb hub that works with it. All my USB ports on the coumpter and hub work fine. But when I hook up my control box it will not communicate with the softwear. It will not work with any ports on the coumpter or the hub.

What am I missing????

Thanks
Bob

[Gary Campbell]

Bob...
Did you install the firmware? [U]tilities [I]nstall Firmware
Gary

[harryball]

Aren't there drivers for the USB device inside the controller... I remember a small CD I had to load to get my PC to communicate with the control box.

/RB

[andyb]

I'm with Robert. The drivers that Robert is referring to should've been installed before the laptop was connected to the controller.

Andy B.

[upserman]

Gary, I tried to install firmware. But here is what came up "Error opening port. The comm port idenifier is bad"

RB, AB there is no disk in the controller.

Bob

[Gary Campbell]

Bob...
You can get the drivers here: http://www.shopbottools.com/drivers.htm
Gary

[harryball]

Yep, unplug you bot from the USB (might even reboot to make sure nothing is "stuck") and install the USB to Serial drivers. Then... connect the bot and it should recognize it. I'm going from memory but I believe that's the correct order.

Once that is done do the firmware update just to be sure nothing is corrupted.

This leaves me thinking maybe I should share something I take for granted. I always create a Downloads folder (in the case of Vista one already exists) and create subfolders for any products I download. I have a ShopBot folder and all of my software complete with notes and keys is maintained there. I do this for all of my software. Often I will RIP CD images (.iso files) into the folder for backup and ease of access. You can actually install a virtual CDROM that will load an .iso image and give you access just as if you put in a CD (I don't suggest any of them for Vista right now though).

I use Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery to create a full image of my harddrive monthly then complete incremental images during each month. I keep the past month and current in progress month. I can go back in time to any snapshot. What's so cool about it... my harddrive crashed completely toasted... in 30 minutes my system was back just like it looked that morning when I woke up. So I lost one file I was working on a few updates... better than the entire system. You can also mount and browse these images and retrieve single files. I'm not trying to promote BESR, there are many options out there, find one and make use of it.

I have archived files from as far back as 1992 the last time I ever suffered a complete loss from a hard drive crash. I occasionally go take a walk through my Downloads and My Documents folders and delete / clean up files. I use a varied approach, I will archive some things off to CD and put a date on it. If I go back and find something I've not needed or wanted for more than a year, bye-bye. I will zip some things into archives (like all my files from my previous job) and some things I just delete knowing I can find it again if needed or because it is never going to be needed, like shopbot controller software more than 4 versions old etc...

Sorry for the long post, just thought I'd share.

/RB

[upserman]

Thank guys for your help.I dont have internet out in my shop. So I installed wirerless on my laptop. That way when drivers were not found it searched the internet and found them. I am up and running again.

Thanks
Bob