Ok, I will try again with a more minimalistic config.
So, I am back with a smaller config. Down to 422 lines (95% of the deleted parts were commented out anyways…). Updated to the latest edge-bin, too. leds_disable true is working now like expected and I am still able to connect the board. I am currently in talk with @raykholo and he is looking into configuring the 6th stepper.
A question that came up: I saw the remark in the sample-config about only 132caracters per line… Does that take comments into account? Or only parameters without the parameter itself?
I believe it includes comments, which is why you see a lot of lines being cut. I could be wrong though.
are they simply “cut and ignored” or do I get trouble using extensive long comments?
I think too long lines can actually cause trouble yes.
ok, thank you 
no they are simply truncated at character 132, so long as it is a comment it should be no problem.
Again a response to this topic: @raykholo did investigate this issue and found that with the april2016 edge build it does work properly. He tested it with his own config and board and told me to try the firmware out of april. I did so and now everything works Even my first “extensive long config with deprecated settings” I showed here before, shows no problems at all. I haven’t fully tested it all yet, but every moving and heating I tried with the 6 steppermotors connected worked for me until now.
april was a long time ago and is very ancient and unsupported code. you have been told what the issue is, I suggest you follow the advice given you, or continue to use unsupported old firmware. your choice.
@Wolfmanjm Even with minimal config it doesn’t work with the newest build. So the issue isn’t the config. And you didn’t told what the issue is, you just said the led-pins should be outputs and thats what they are. Why don’t you take this as a helpfull “heavy testing” of smoothieware instead of blaming me using “ancient unsupported code”? I chose smoothie because it is very nice software and I like how it works. I even promote smoothieware everywhere I can. Bringing Smoothieware to it’s limits (if that is even the case - I doubt it) should be appreciated.
I suggest you get the person you bought the board from to help you then. As you are using a non supported configuration for smoothie… As I said no leds is not a 100% smoothie compatible configuration. I can’t help you anymore.
Yeah, I get that you can’t support all variants of your open source design. And like I told, the creator of the cohesion remix @raykholo did investigate, helped and supported. I don’t want to blame, instead I just thought, that it is helpfull for you to know additional info, like “aprils build works”. I exaggerate if I say, that updating smoothie firmware does “brick” 3rd-party boards, but that’s simply the case here. Noone knows who is the culprit (3rd-party-board or original firmware), but maybe investigating such info from users using smoothie-variants can make smoothieware even better. Anyways, keep up the good work, make smoothieware great and like always, thank you very much for all the info and help provided.
The issue is pretty simple.
I have my genuine Smoothieboard 5x here. I have gone ahead and flashed it with the latest edge from 3 days ago, and loaded up a brand new clean config file from the Smoothieware Github. Plug into USB, LEDs blink, Windows recognizes it, all is good.
Now let me go ahead and define a 3rd extruder module using some spare pins (2.11, 3.25, and 3.26). LEDs are still enabled in config, and we’re using non status LED pins here. Save, safely eject, and reset the board. Boom, board will not boot: 3.3v LED is on but L1 - L4 are off and Windows says device not recognized.
Here is the config file: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n02hw02cwaar30e/AACBxSXdyT_JrEAMZNzAv6oOa?dl=0
The same issue occurs on all firmware edge builds I have tried going back to August 2016. Is there anything else you would like me to do to demonstrate the issue or to help debug?
maybe config file too big
ok @raykholo did you read the upgrade notes for edge? Probably not because the exact cause is actually documented there sorry it may not be a large config file although that could also be an issue. If you hooked up a serial uart then booted you would actually see what the error was as it should print it out. If you are going to be selling boards I suggest you learn how to debug some of these issues yourself I will not always be around to do it for you. Also reading the documentation helps
@Wolfmanjm Ok, let me try that.
Attempt 1: I have kept the hotend3 switch module in the config, but have set:
extruder.hotend3.enable false
In this case the board boots fine.
Attempt 2: Now I have gone ahead and removed everything below extruder from config (laser, temp, switch, endstop, panel, and network all gone).
With all that removed, and hotend3.enable still false, I verify that the board does indeed boot - so I did not screw anything up by deleting those lines.
Now I will go ahead and set hotend3.enable true
Board does not boot, usb device not recognized, all same as before.
Here is that config file: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0x13jxe1p2922uz/AABdYdJ__mSY3b6IKFSISuGna?dl=0
What can I do next to debug?
read my last post
FWIW I think you need to learn how to hook up the uart and read the section in the wiki about how to use MRI debugging
That would have solved this issue in 10 seconds for you and I wouldn’t have needed to be involved at all and I wouldn’t of pissed everyone off by being grumpy about it
I have found notation #7 in that file now and understand that I will have to recompile the firmware with MAX_ROBOT_ACTUATORS set to 6.
Thank you for helping find the root cause of the issue.
I will use MRI next time there is a question like this.
Thanks for your time!
-Ray
also note that with 6 actuators there is even less memory available, so small configs are even more necessary. you may encounter out of memory errors during printing as well, so enable as few modules as needed. MRI will determine if you are hitting out of memory issues as well as the mem command.