DiyLightAnimation
Hardware => Lynx USB DMX Dongle => Topic started by: enjoylife22 on November 28, 2016,
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Ok trying to program my dongle and I have only got it to work 3 times. Here is what I have done. I flashed new chip to pixelnet. I plugged the dongle into an active hub and was able to program my first SSC v2 mod. It did not flash fast like the one in video it was a slow flash but worked. So I went on to programing songs and had unplugged my dongle. When I plugged back in no go. So I started messing with where I put the wires. I left dongle plugged into the pixelnet in and plugedd ssc into pixelnet out Nothing. I reran the FTDI exe with dongle in and it went through searching and then I tried again NOTHING. So I left the SSC program running unplug from Pixelnet out and into one of the 16 ports and bam the lights started flashing and this time the fast flash. So I plugged in my Pic 3 and started flashing more SSCs Unplugged the Pickit3 and now nothing again won't program or even run my DMX. So I am pretty sure it has something with the FTDI drivers not installing right. Does anyone know the proper Driver signing or what any settings are suppose to be? I see my com Port in device manager then I look at properties and I see in main window FTDI but one of the certificates says Mictrosoft usb instead of all being FTDI ? Anyone care to try and help me fix this?
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The SCC's will not work when plugged into the pixelnet out. They need to be plugged into one of the hubs controller output jacks. The controller jacks supply power for the SCC and the pixelnet output does not. Neither does the dongle so if you are trying to plug the SCC directly into the dongle, nothing is going to happen. The primary purpose for the hub is to supply power to the SCC's as well as split the signal.
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Ok I have done this and i was able to see my LE work on a dmx out to a tx\rx then wireless to LE. Could see all the channels work fine now nothing and the green light does not come on the dongle when I try to send anything. I know it is a communication error between dongle and my computer but have no idea how to fix it. I tried uninstalling the comport and rerecognizing to no avail. Is there certain settings I need to change in the driver? I saw on FTDI website that the driver can talk with eeprom could this lead to chip not talking? Do I need to reflash chip and start over? Really a pain I have had this problem in past with it not recognizing and I just unplug and plug back in and then would work fine. Now it is just not talking with the system.
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Is the PC recognizing the dongle when it is plugged in? Is the red power light turning on?
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yes red power and then when I try to send anything out of computer the green light never comes on. The one time I had it plugged into the pixelnet out and switched it to one of the 16 ports on active hub it came on bright green when sending data. The smart string flashed fast as it should. So I unplugged the dongle to plug in my pickit3, only unplugged it because I didn't want anything crazy happen, programmed some sscs then went to plug dongle back in.... I got the noise it makes when plugging it in the try and program and I get nothing.
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What did you switch to one of the hubs 16 ports? If you plugged the dongle into one of them, you may have damaged it.
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I had the ssc programing going and I took the ssc wire I was programming and unplugged it from the pixelnet out and into the 16 port portion of the hub.
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no dongel is always plugged into the pixelnet in on hub
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I am almost positive that the it is the Ftdi driver portion not talking nice with my computer. What are the settings on the driver page for the dongle. I am getting just a serial usb port designation in my device manager. When I go into the driver and read the details the second one down tells me it is a Microsoft certificate. Not sure if this is the cause. I tried everything I know to get it to work. Even manually installing the driver and still go nothing. I am not at home but when I get there around 4 I am going to reflash pic chip to dmx and come up from there.
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do I use the most up to date FTDI install or just the old one?
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Reflashing the PIC will have no effect. The FTDI driver talks to the USB interface card on the dongle, not the PIC. I would delete the serial port designation in the device manager and let it reinstall. Make sure that the FTDI drivers are compatible with the OS you are using.
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If you unpluged the usb dongle from your computer then plugged it back in. you should check to make sure it didn't get assigned another COM port.
If you reflashed the pic in the SSC (with a pickit), then the starting channel gets set back to channel one.
If you successfully programmed your ssc using the SSC utility, and the lights started blinking, then the start channel should be where you set the number. If you set the start channel to a number higher than 4096 by mistake, then the start channel is still somewhere between 1 and 4096.
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it is not changing the port number. The problem it is doing is talking nice with each other. For some odd reason I have one microsoft certification in the driver all the rest are FTDI. It is really odd like I said I can get it to work once in awhile but not all the time. I checked power and have that at scc just checked to see if I had a data signal and I do just not correct language I suppose. I know it is at dongle end because the green light does not flash green when they it is not working and does flash bright green when it does. I am going to reflash the dongle chip again and maybe it is just something with it.
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When you have the dongle plugged in go to the hardware manager on your computer and go down to ports, find the USB serial port your dongle is using and right click and select properties. When the properties page comes up select the "Port Setting Tab". Make sure it is set to: Bits per Second = 115200 , Data Bits = 8, Parity = None, Stop Bits = 1, Flow Control= None.
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I get all the FTDI certs except one and that goes to a microsoft cert. I don't think it is grabbing the correct dll. It is also showing up in my printer and devices window. I attached a pic
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I am beginning to doubt that it is the FTDI drivers. The green LED is tied to the 485 chip and if either it or the opto fails, it will not light. I would check the board and make sure that there are no cold solder joints. If you have an LE, you could borrow one of its 485's and see if that is the issue. If you reflash the PIC, make sure that all of the pins are seated properly in the socket.
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ok here is what I get I can play my show on nutcracker and all the dmx channels light up and Green light on dongle lights up. But I still get nothing coming down the pixelnet I have power and a voltage on the data but nothing works won't program.
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I have a bunch of extra 485 chips and put that into the dongle and same thing. Like I said I got it to work for a few times but when I unplugged the dongle then this happened and I can not get it to work again. Dongle is not flashing or doing anything when I try to program the ssc. I got the one programed to 25 and I can even get it when I do the test in nutcracker. It is like the pixelnet language is not being sent correctly. This is why I thought it was the FTDI because it happened after I unplugged the dongle. I guess I am at a loss why it will communicate the dmx on the dmx output but not the pixelnet. So if I am able to get the Dmx out of the hub then my FTDI is ok or could that be messing with the pixelnet language? Is there a way to test the pixelnet protocal coming out of dongle?
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OK, now I see the issue and the problem is that the DMX dongle has a hard time programming the SSC's. The EDT has no problem programming them however. Programming them is a bit more than just sending pixelnet data and I believe that there are timing issues during the programming that the USB dongle has issues with. It may just not be fast enough to give a clean programing signal. If you have an EDT, then just use it for programming and of not, then you might want to try using the falcon firmware for the SSC and use its programming software.
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ok so is there a setting to make the data transfer faster because it worked last year and a few times this year. I programed the one to 25 and it still won't do the pixlenet lights even after one is programed
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tbone I thank you for all the help you are showing me I appreciate it soooo much. Now I unplugged the dongle reflashed pic to dmx and plugged it directly into the LE and no go nothing at all. It won't light up anything so I am going to reflash it back to pixelnet and see what happens. I was using dmx deck.
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Make sure that you are using the DMX Pro setting and not DMX open. The dongle will not work with the open driver. I would also look into the opto-coupler and if you have a spare, swap it out.
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tbone again I thank you so much. I finally figured it out by going back and forth back and forth over what I did to get it to work. What was happening is when I would plug in my pickit3 it was going to port 3 designation same as the dongle only it was going in as a interface. So I change the comport to 5 and away it went. I did find one scc that is not working so far so I will have to trouble shoot that next.
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If you haven't already download the FTDI drivers:
32 Bit: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM%20v2.12.24%20WHQL%20Certified.zip
64 Bit: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM%20v2.12.24%20WHQL%20Certified.zip
Install the driver THEN plug in the dongel.