Yet another HELP me with Etherdongle thread.

[tbone321]

Check to make sure that you are getting voltage to the SSC and that your hubs jumpers are still set correctly.

[taybrynn]

I bought a little $8 cat5 tester off amazon recently (arrived in like a day or two with prime) and its been nice because it's allowed me to quickly find out when a cat5 is bad on a certain pair.  I've tossed those cables, as I've had a surprising number of problems that were actually just a bad cable ... but very hard to diagnose otherwise.  I also left the reciever end of the tester connected near my controller ... and it was interesting because when I hooked up the other sid to the etherdongle, it was showing LED(s) lighting up on the reciever tester end ... so at least I could tell it was getting data on that end!   That could be handy just to know your getting a signal or not.   

I'd like some more details on your exact setup ... or a picture, because I think others could help you more if they saw a picture of that.  Don't give up.  I understand its extremely frustrating and I've been wanting to quit almost every year at many points ... so we are here to help if we can.

[KevinHolme]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I did manage to get another etherdongle from Ron    So that will really help me troubleshoot if that is not the problem.

Is their any other way to program this stuff?  I have a few other programmers from other hobbies that all seem easier to use than the Pickit 3.  Are all of these brand specific?  Or could I also use my Atmel AVR for this, or anything else.

[KevinHolme]

Ok I got it working.  I had multiple issues. My network was blocking the Multicast, But very early in the troubleshooting I re flashed both the ETD and the smart Hub.  After I did that, Nothing worked so It became a major frustration.

The Pickit3 is a real problem child in my opinion. I think that as it says in the WIKI the V3 of the stand alone program will allow you to think that everything flashed just fine, but it will not work.

The V1 of the program I could not even get to open, A couple of times I would try to open it, and a half hour later multiple instances of the program would appear on the screen.  wierd

 The MPLAB IPE is indeed the ticket to a real and lasting program, But from reading the threads here I am not the only one who gets a failed to connect message.

So my successful method is

1. Use the V3 version of the stand alone programmer.  Open the program, THEN plug in the Pickit3, After it recognizes it, got to tools, and " revert to mplab mode".  Close the programmer.

2. open the MPLAB IPE.  If it does not recognize the Pickit, move it to another usb port.  Once recognized, it should now connect  and you can actually use it.

Hope this helps someone else.

[jnealand]

The key to using the IPE in my opinion is to got to settings, advanced, log in, and then click on power and clcik the supply power button.  Also some devices need to have power applied as in normal operation with the wall wart.

[taybrynn]

THanks Kevin, I agree the pickit3 is a problem child ... I had similar experiences trying to program my ED ... much more problematic than using pickit2 with previous things.  Thanks for sharing what you did.