Connect/Disconnect Toolboard with printer powered on

sfiamma87

Hello everyone,

I have a question about managing toolboards. I am designing a printer and I am not sure if it is possible to detach a tool that has a toolboard and still have the printer function with the second tool. If I detach the first tool and put jumpers on the tool's connection cable, would it recognize the second tool? Or would it get confused with the addresses?

Are there any issues with connecting/disconnecting toolboards while the machine is powered on?

Another question: If I have a spare tool with a toolboard, can I connect it and have it recognized, or do I need to modify the addresses?

Thanks.

oliof

@sfiamma87 each toolboard comes with a default address, so you will need to change that before adding more boards.

You could detach and re-attach boards, this is detected automatically and events are fired. If a board is not available while it's being configured that will throw errors, but not stop the machine.

sfiamma87

@oliof Thank you. I tested it and it works just fine. It's also quite fast. The only problem is that I cannot keep the toolboard detached without opening the CAN bus circuit. Theoretically, I could use a board with a short circuit, couldn't I?

oliof

@sfiamma87 managing the can bus is another challenge, I had assumed you have one tool and some boards to swap; now it sounds like you have multiple tools with multiple boards?

droftarts

@sfiamma87 said in Connect/Disconnect Toolboard with printer powered on:

The only problem is that I cannot keep the toolboard detached without opening the CAN bus circuit. Theoretically, I could use a board with a short circuit, couldn't I?

You could try wiring the toolboards as a stub, ie with just two wires (CAN_H and CAN_L) going to the toolboard. Do not terminate the CAN bus on the toolboard, terminate the bus at the last CAN device. eg something like this:
alt text

Where "Expansion 2" would be where you wire the swapping boards. You definitely want to pause the machine until the toolboard swap has happened, CAN has reconnected, and toolboard config is loaded.

Ian