Quite some time ago I had a hard time getting my machine to run. Some might remember because I got a lot of help from forum members. I finally got it working but I still kept getting intermitent problems. I finally found the problem. I was using the 5volt supply from my computer power supply. It seems that there was a problem with the power supply. The voltage would intermitently drop to around 3 volts. Strangely enough the PC wasn't effected. I added an external supply and have not had a problem since.

Thanks for posting the info.
It will probably help someone down the road.

Mike

Quite some time ago I had a hard time getting my machine to run. Some might remember because I got a lot of help from forum members. I finally got it working but I still kept getting intermitent problems. I finally found the problem. I was using the 5volt supply from my computer power supply. It seems that there was a problem with the power supply. The voltage would intermitently drop to around 3 volts. Strangely enough the PC wasn't effected. I added an external supply and have not had a problem since.

Just curious about this, was the 5volt supply from a USB jack by any chance?

Thanks,
Dave

No. It was connected to one of the power supply plugs. The cable was 18 ga shielded and about 4 ft. long. Since the PC was unaffected I am thinkng there could have been a minor voltage drop across the cable. The supply I used had a good solid 5v output and I mounted it in the control box with the breakout board.

I see, thanks for that, I was wondering if possibly the USB voltage dropped as I've actually heard of that happening before on certain PC's.

Glad you figured it out and thanks for posting-
Dave

No. It was connected to one of the power supply plugs. The cable was 18 ga shielded and about 4 ft. long. Since the PC was unaffected I am thinkng there could have been a minor voltage drop across the cable. The supply I used had a good solid 5v output and I mounted it in the control box with the breakout board.

An XP pc will power down devices to conserve power and sometimes you will need to go into the device manerger to stop it and somtimes the bios also . Win7 seems not to do it as long the power settings are set to high perfomance

glad you got it fixed this sight has helped me a lot also