USB Stick format

[gerry]

I have a AR8 PRO+ I'm just setting up. I have a 16GB USB stick formatted FAT32. I put 3 files on it and it took multiple tries for the files to be seen by the pendant. I finally copies the three files to internal and ran them. No problem. Now I got to put another new file on the internal, and is doesn't see any file on the USB stick. Any suggestions? Is there an eject procedure for the USB?

tnx,
Gerry

[J at DPW]

This is the exact issue I am having, the machine doesn't see any files on the external USB.

[smokediver576]

From what I understand it has to be an older style thumb drive. I use an old 2gig drive and it works fine. I think Axiom should provide these with a new machine since they are getting hard to come by.

[chuck26287]

You can see that symptom if you try to access the USB too soon after inserting it. Like mentioned, it's older tech, and the HHC can take some time to "mount" the USB as a drive. I had this problem initially, and suspected I was trying to access it before it finished mounting. I got an older USB that had an LED indicator on it. When you insert it into the HHC, you should see it start flashing. You don't want to try to access the USB until that initial flashing stops. Then the USB is mounted and should be readable. Be aware, you can sometimes get a secondary couple of flashes after it appears to have stopped. This can take what seems like forever if you use today's faster PCs.

[gerry]

After talking to Chad this morning, he confirmed that the USB should be old style, 8GB or less. I went out and got 3 PNY 8GB USB 2.0 sticks. 1 out of the 3 worked, but worked great. Fry's Electronics even had 4GB drives. I'll pick up a few different brands of the 4GB to test next time I'm by there.

[J at DPW]

I got it to work, as said I just had to leave the memory stick in the handheld controller for a long time.
Now I need to figure out why my dxf files are not saving properly.

[dough]

Sorry folks but I am incredibly new at this. Stupid question #1 I created a file to surface my spoil board on the computer. I downloaded it to memory stick and plugged into the hand held. How do I get anything to happen from there? Seems like it should be "plug and play" but it's not working out that way for me.

[garylyb]

The first thing you have to do is to set the z height. Since you're so new, I'd say set it high so you can do an air cut just to see if your program is going to work.

Use the z+ and z- keys to move the bit about 2 inches above the spoil boars, the press the z->0 key. That tells the controller where the bit is.

Then use the run button, then the x+ and x- keys to select the usb, press the green key to select it.

Use the x+ and x- keys again to select your program from the usb. Press the green key twice to start the spindle.

Keep your finger near the yellow stop button and press it if something doesn't look right.

[garylyb]

Here's a youtube video that should help.




Around 5 minutes in is where he starts the program. Ignore the setting of the parameters, it's not necessary.

[dadealeus]

Definitely an old thread, but I wanted to make a note here of a solution that I found for newer/larger USB sticks.

My old 8 GB stick failed on me and I came across this thread because my Axiom machine couldn't find any files on my 64 GB USB stick. The problem (for my stick) was that it was formatted as an EXFAT filesystem instead of FAT32. For a 64 GB partition, Windows 10's formatting program only gave me the options of using EXFAT or NTFS. To get around this, I simply made a 6 GB partition (instead of the full 64 GB) and it gave me the option to use FAT32. Once I had a FAT32 filesystem set up on the stick, the Axiom controller recognized it without any issues.

I believe that Microsoft limits FAT32 partitions to 32GB in size (in order to promote the use of NTFS), so anything 32 GB or smaller *should* be able to be formatted into a FAT32 filesystem using the format program present in Windows by default.

== TLDR ==
If you're using a larger / newer USB stick, make sure the filesystem on it is FAT32 rather than EXFAT or NTFS.

(Edited for spelling)

[gerry]

Aug 21, 2019 17:39:16 GMT -5 dadealeus said:

Definitely an old thread, but I wanted to make a note here of a solution that I found for newer/larger USB sticks.

My old 8 GB stick failed on me and I came across this thread because my Axiom machine couldn't find any files on my 64 GB USB stick. The problem (for my stick) was that it was formatted as an EXFAT filesystem instead of FAT32. For a 64 GB partition, Windows 10's formatting program only gave me the options of using EXFAT or NTFS. To get around this, I simply made a 6 GB partition (instead of the full 64 GB) and it gave me the option to use FAT32. Once I had a FAT32 filesystem set up on the stick, the Axiom controller recognized it without any issues.

I believe that Microsoft limits FAT32 partitions to 32GB in size (in order to promote the use of NTFS), so anything 32 GB or smaller *should* be able to be formatted into a FAT32 filesystem using the format program present in Windows by default.

== TLDR ==
If you're using a larger / newer USB stick, make sure the filesystem on it is FAT32 rather than EXFAT or NTFS.

(Edited for spelling)

Great info. I thought that I had tried FAT32, but I could have been wrong. Thanks for posting your find...

[dadealeus]

I, admittedly, did not try anything larger than the 6 GB partition that I made (I just wanted to make sure I was well under the 8 GB mark). It's possible that there's some sort of filesystem size limit imposed by the Axiom firmware that doesn't read filesystems larger than a certain size, so maybe yours *was* FAT32, but the 16GB filesystem was too large?

Either way, at least coming in at 8GB or under using FAT32 *does* seem to work for my stick.

If anyone else has trouble with this, please let me know and I'll do some more testing to see what the upper limit on the Axiom controller is.