I know I should probably take this to the Sparkfun boards, but figured I’d drop a thread here and see if anyone has anything to add…
My SSC-32 works fine plugged in directly via serial cable.
However, I’ve setup the Bluesmirf according to the instructions in Jim’s tutorial, and as soon as I go to select the allocated com port in Lynx term to set baud rates, it BSOD’s my PC with an irql not less or equal etc. I’ve tried this on 3 PCs, same result on every one. T
he only difference in setting this up, is that I’m using the supplied software that came with the usb dongle (from sparkfun, and its mentioned as the new software used) instead of Bluesoleil, and I cant get bluesoleil to find my dongle anyway.
Not sure, I haven’t tried using the blue smirf but if you could post a pic of how you have it wired up would help others figure out what might be wrong.
So it sounds like a device driver problem with the blue dongle software. What OS are you running this on? I noticed on the sparkfun web page that they are still testing this on Vista.
Have you tried to see if maybe there are any updated drivers?
^ Thats actually what I ended up doing as the event log showed it as a driver failure. Was running Windows XP…
Turned out to be a nightmare -_-
Sparkfun switched the USB dongle that theyre deploying, and the new version no longer uses the same software/drivers as the one in Jim’s brat/bluesmirf guide. To make matters worse, the drivers they supplied on the disc were apparently bad. To make matters EVEN worse, when I went to get updated drivers, it told me my product was invalid/unlicensed and wouldnt allow me to update them.
Apparently Broadcom/bluetooth have some screwed up licensing setup to use their drivers (even though the usb dongle has a broadcom chip) and if for some reason you dont ‘pass’ they dont allow you to use them.
I finally fixed it through a very complicated series of reg hacks and manually modifying the driver .ini file, so that I could implement the updated driver and get around the license issue.
So, long story short, the drivers that are now shipped suck, buyer beware.
Wow, Thanks. I was just going to buy 5 smirfs for a project at work. Have you got an estimate from the spark fun about when they’ll rectify this mishap?
^ From the sound of that post, he probably got the same dongle as indicated in the tutorial. My problem stemmed from getting a different make of dongle- with different software and drivers, even though I ordered the same part # from Sparkfun.
btw, this should’ve been posted in the Wireless board, my bad!
