3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on Windows.

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ultek
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:06 am

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by ultek »

jwick wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 1:12 pm We ship a program called "3DxTest" in the 3DxWinCore installation directory. Run that and tell me what you see. You should see values from the 6 axes. Is one of the more active than the others.
Hey jwick, below are values from 3dxTest:
TX: stable 0
TY: from -59 to -50 with peaks above -40 every couple of seconds
TZ: from -75 to -70 with peak above -55
RX: from 90 to 110 with peaks belov 90
RY: stable 0
RZ: from -60 to -40
P: stable 16
jwick wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 1:12 pm Then, as tech support suggested, you can calibrate it using the shortcut in the 3Dx systray icon. That should settle down the values printed in 3DxTest to all zeros when you release the cap.
Unfortunately calibrating doesn't help with anything. The drift is extremely heavy. After calibrating 3dxTest shows the same values as above.
jwick wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 1:12 pm Does the device rattle when you shake it or other obvious physical problem?
Nope. Only rattle is from buttons which can be neglected when shaking while holding them. The device stops working suddenly which was kinda weird.
ultek
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:06 am

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by ultek »

I got a response from Polish support team. Despite their best intentions they were unable to help.

Looks like my experience with spaceMouse ends at this point. :(
luping
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2019 5:54 pm

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by luping »

ultek wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:10 am I got a response from Polish support team. Despite their best intentions they were unable to help.

Looks like my experience with spaceMouse ends at this point. :(
You can invest on a new device, the 3D mouse should worth the money you invested, and you get a high return of investment: reduced future medical expense for your fingers/hands and higher productivity.
ultek
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:06 am

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by ultek »

Hey It's me again :)

So today I took me spacemouse and with nothing to loose I sprayed the joy and everything beneath it with dry-erase cleaner (I think it's 100% alcohol). Then I wrapped it in foil and left for about 15 minutes. After this the device is working like a charm (for a couple of hours now), no more drifting and 3dxtest shows 0 on every axis and "zero event" at the top of the window. Not sure how this procedure helped but it helped :) Or maybe it's just a coincidence? 8)

Best.
ult.
jwick
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Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by jwick »

Interesting. Wouldn't have been my first choice of liquid but it was probably convenient.
You had dirt or corrosion on some your LEDs or PSDs?
I'll run it by the hardware guys next time I see them.
luping
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2019 5:54 pm

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by luping »

ultek wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:34 pm Hey It's me again :)

So today I took me spacemouse and with nothing to loose I sprayed the joy and everything beneath it with dry-erase cleaner (I think it's 100% alcohol). Then I wrapped it in foil and left for about 15 minutes. After this the device is working like a charm (for a couple of hours now), no more drifting and 3dxtest shows 0 on every axis and "zero event" at the top of the window. Not sure how this procedure helped but it helped :) Or maybe it's just a coincidence? 8)

Best.
ult.
Amazing, it's like WD-40 specialist electrical contact cleaner spray. I like your think out of box approach. :D
Quentin
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 4:17 am

Re: 3dConnection Enterprise random drifting in every axis

Post by Quentin »

This also might help to be on record:

I use an older Space Mouse Compact model. My graphics card is an Nvidia Quadro M2000. I use it primarily for Autodesk Inventor CAD software. I've had drifting symptoms for many months now, but it seems to be sorted now.

The symptoms first showed up with my web browsers ghost scrolling. I had no idea at this stage that it was the space mouse causing this, as I didn't realise it talked with the windows GUI (lots of cursing at Microsoft!). It got worse, and not long after I noticed that my Inventor software would rotate models without my input.

I realised not long after that the browser & CAD drifting were the same symptom, so I would calibrate the Space Mouse, and the problem would go away for the day's session. However, it got progressively worse over the next few weeks, to the point where I would need to calibrate the SM every half hour or so. For the Win10 environment, using the SM setup menu, I set the windows control inputs to zero, but the drifting continued in Windows despite this. As a temporary fix, when I was browsing, I would start the SM calibration, but not click OK on the dialog box, thus suspending the calibration. This would stop any drifting in the Windows environment, but disable navigation in my Inventor environment.

Recently, I was having PC stability problems triggered by the latest Win10 updates (blue screen, roll-backs, delay updates etc). Sometimes my monitors would just blank out during this instability period (no signal). This prompted me to swap my monitor cables to different sockets on my graphics card outputs. As this worked occasionally, I thought I may have fixed my instability with Win10 updates problem. Nope. It got worse, until even the cable swapping had no effect. At this point I couldn't use my PC at all.

Seeing as it was the Graphics card as the biggest problem now, I opened up my PC and noted a spare PCIe slot, so swapped the Quadro into this spare slot.

So far, 10 days in no drifting on the Space Mouse. Plus, stable system on the rolled back Win10 configuration. Fingers crossed!
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