Troubleshooting no board LED (Only MagJack LED) (*SOLVED*)

[c4v3man]

Programmed (twice) with PicKit3 while disconnected from DC power (same as LEv5's). Verifies fine.
Plug in power, no board LED (fine, not supposed to indicate power).
Plug in ethernet to laptop. MagicJack lights up.
Fire up vixen with ED DMX plugin. Assign all channels. Run Vixen Channel test, and while dragging the slider, or playing the show, get steady activity light.

The board's LED does not light up, and my LE's do not receive any signal. Output direct from ED to LEv5.

What should I check first? PIC is working (programmed/verified) and ethernet is working (receives data). Some sort of connection problem between the two?

UPDATE: Bad Cable on EtherDongle output to Lynx Express...

[n1ist]

Just one little correction - MagJack is short for a jack with the magnetics (transformers) inside it.  Magic Jack is a voice-over-IP solution for telephones.

Are you using the DMX firmware for the eD?

/mike

[c4v3man]

Just one little correction - MagJack is short for a jack with the magnetics (transformers) inside it.  Magic Jack is a voice-over-IP solution for telephones.

Are you using the DMX firmware for the eD?

/mike

Yes, using dmx firmware.

[c4v3man]

Quick pics of board. Can reshoot if needed later.

[caretaker]

Sounds like you may be having a set up issue with Vixen

[sjb]

Sorry I was thinking conductor and removed my post before your reply.

Question is the LEv5 boards terminated and the wireless jumper in place?

Steve

[c4v3man]

Sorry I was thinking conductor and removed my post before your reply.

Question is the LEv5 boards terminated and the wireless jumper in place?

Steve

Both jumpers are in place (although I tried with the terminate jumper out).

Lynx set to dmx001. Vixen has etherdongle dmx plugin configured for channels 1-48 (only 3 LE's this year).


If Vixen was misconfigured, wouldn't the etherdongle get NO data, or am I incorrect in this assumption?

[sjb]

This is my first year, but I believe if you have the proper output plugin set in Vixen and try and run the sequence it would give you an error if it did not see it.

not to offend you, but you said starting with 3 LE's this year, have set the start channels on all 3 LE's?

If you have all three LE's set with the first one set to channel 1 (Terminate jumper must be off) then this one connected to the next ones with the proper start channel of 17 on one and 33 on the last one. If they do not go to another controller then the terminate jumper must be on.

Steve

[Jeffl]

You mentioned that the LED on the ED is not working is that correct?  The LED is an indicator that the PIC is working properly and not a power indicator.

[c4v3man]

This is my first year, but I believe if you have the proper output plugin set in Vixen and try and run the sequence it would give you an error if it did not see it.

not to offend you, but you said starting with 3 LE's this year, have set the start channels on all 3 LE's?

If you have all three LE's set with the first one set to channel 1 (Terminate jumper must be off) then this one connected to the next ones with the proper start channel of 17 on one and 33 on the last one. If they do not go to another controller then the terminate jumper must be on.

Steve

I have no problem with questions about the basics.

Technically I am testing output to just one LE with the starting channel being displayed of 001. I figured the other channels (17-48) would be ignored, but perhaps my assumption is incorrect. I do have the LE's programmed with the correct starting channels however... As stated, I tried with the terminate jumper connected, but for the heck of it powered down the board and unplugged it to test as well.

[c4v3man]

You mentioned that the LED on the ED is not working is that correct?  The LED is an indicator that the PIC is working properly and not a power indicator.

I realize that the LED is not a power indicator (as stated in the assembly manual), but other than connecting my multimeter to verify correct polarity, and to verify it wasn't burnt out, I have never seen the LED lit up, even when programming. At what point should the LED come on?

[c4v3man]

Also, just to make sure it's clear, I have a standard cat5 cable going from the ED to the LEv5. It is not a crossover cable, nor is it customized in any way. From what I read, without using a "combiner" in a reverse fashion, hooking up straight to an LE limits you to 512 channels (1 universe) which is fine. But it sounded like a straight cable going from the ED to the LE would work fine for those 512 channels, correct? Or do I need to make a custom cable... I didn't really see a spec on the pinout for the output from the ED, nor the input into the LEv5 beyond pins 1 and 2 being used for the DMX signal. Am I correct in assuming the ED sends out 4 pairs of DMX signals, including channels 1-512 on pins 1 and 2?

[c4v3man]

Went in to test again tonight, and hooked up the cables differently and noticed that I wasn't getting a link on the MagJack any longer... verified the cable and saw that it is in fact a straight cable... switched the cables out and the MagJack started working again...

Apparently the factory made cat5 cable I was using for testing wasn't working... replaced with another cable and now getting DMX. Sorry for wasting your time, didn't expect a new cat5 cable to be broken outta the box...

The board LED still has never lit up on me, so I'm curious as to what should cause it to light up... but irregardless it is working properly now. Thank you for your time, and I apologize for wasting it.

[rmp2917]

The board LED still has never lit up on me, so I'm curious as to what should cause it to light up... but irregardless it is working properly now. Thank you for your time, and I apologize for wasting it.

No need to apologize. I'm glad you figured it out and got it working.

On mine the LED comes on as soon as I plug it in. So, it sounds like the LED may be backwards or simply bad. If everything is working for you, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[sjb]

Glad to hear you got it fixed.

From my short experience on this forum I can say it was not a waste of time as now I have learned something new to test if I run into issues.

Steve