I have a Full Spectrum Deluxe Hobby Laser from January 2011 with a rev 1.2 c2010 RetinaEngrave USB board. Laser new in box and I just tried to set it up but I can't get RetinaEngrave to connect to it. My guess is that the firmware and desktop software version must match, but Full Spectrum's website only has the very latest software available for download. Maybe the latest software posted on Full Spectrum's website (4.404) is not compatible with the machine's firmware? (Looking through their forum archives, it seems the 3.x software versions were in use in the 2010-2011 time period-- I've been able to find other 4.x versions for download via Google but haven't had any luck with those either).
When I use this latest software it just says "Attempting to Connect" in the UI and I see the following in c:\output\4.404\debug.txt:
Hobby 9.5x14
ConnectRE Loop
RetinaEngrave.exe Error: 0 : Disconnected from GetStatus due to timeout
DateTime=2013-12-16T23:49:41.3711743Z
ConnectRE Loop
XUSB Connect Failed
ConnectRE Loop
XUSB Connect Failed
...
And so on-- it looks like it's looping trying to connect and failing, forever. Tried on Win 7x64 and a Win 8.1 machine with same results with all sorts of network settings (futzing with the firewall, at least according to the log, only seemed to affect the software's ability to get an external IP, contact a time server and look for updates).
BTW, in case you're wondering why I don't just contact FS Laser, I did but they will not provide me an updated firmware or any other help unless I pay them a few hundred bucks -- I don't want to do that as I haven't been very impressed with them so far.
OTHER things I've tried:
I tried using Portmon to sniff COM25 (which the FTDI drivers are using) but there's no traffic at all. I tried connecting to COM25 from Putty to see if it would spit out some diagnostic info on firmware version but I get nothing. The FTDI port is set at 9600,8N1 IIRC in Device Manager.
Also noticed in the debug.txt that "detailed logging is false" upon startup but I haven't been able to figure out how to enable detailed logging. I tried searching the Windows registry, the various XML config files, and tried a few command line switch guesses-- no luck.
The machine itself looks to be OK. I get two green LEDs on the power supply, one green led on the USB board. I can test fire the laser and set a piece of paper on fire. The red aiming dot is present and looks in focus.
Any ideas folks?
I will likely be able to borrow a Windows XP machine with a parallel port in the next week or two and will try the trial version of Mach 3.
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Just for the record, when the firewall is off and I turn off all network interfaces except my wireless, the top of the log looks like this:
This Retina Engrave executable has run 15 times since 12/15/2013 3:21:48 PM
IsUpdateAvailable()
********************
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 0
Logging Started: 12/16/2013 3:49:31 PM
Detailed logging set to False
got ext ip response
ext ip set success= 50.184.73.6
checking NIST over 192.168.1.121
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 0
got NIST time
internet available check result = True
---------------set savedXvalue to 0
OTHERWISE... I get a bunch of rows like THIS:
...
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 7
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 8
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 9
binding to 192.168.1.121 retry count: 10
...