Help something wrong with Dongle and FTDI

[tbone321]

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.

[enjoylife22]

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.

[enjoylife22]

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?

[tbone321]

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. 

[enjoylife22]

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

[enjoylife22]

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.

[tbone321]

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.

[enjoylife22]

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.

[caretaker]

If you haven't already download the FTDI drivers:
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Install the driver THEN plug in the dongel.