I have read many forum posts leading up to asking customer support, but what is happening is I have an AL5D arm with an SSC-32u board. I have a solid blue light and it will not connect with Flowarm PLTW. I have launched and relaunched the software with the bluetooth on and off, etc. Next, I have downloaded and “flashed” the chip using FT Prog and downloaded the new drivers. I have also downloaded the ssc32 utility and have typed in VER with no response from the ssc. When I press the BAUD button on the SSC board the red B light flashes. When I hit “enter” on the keyboard after typing in VER or at anytime, B flashes red on the board. Any help is appreciated, I have 15 of these arms for a classroom set and would love to be able to diagnose this, especially in case it arises again later.
Thanks!
Nick Crosse
Hi Nick,
The solid blue LED indicated power to the system (good thing!). When fully powered, you mention pressing the BAUD button causes the red LED to blink quickly. This would indicate a baud rate of 38400. By default, the FlowArm PLTW software uses either 115200 (both green/red LEDs blinking) or 9600 (only green LED blinking).
You also mention sending any data to the SSC-32U seems to trigger the red LED, which normally indicate a serial transmission “frame error” (data is in the wrong format). This is usually caused by using the wrong baud rate.
Considering the two information above, we recommend that you start by changing the baud rate back to 9600 (the default stock baud rate for the SSC-32U).
The baud rate can be changed by following the procedure available in the SSC-32U manual, bottom half of page 34.
Once the baud rate is changed, power cycle the SSC-32U and press the BAUD button once to confirm the baud rate (should be 9600 / green LED blinking).
Then, try connecting with the FlowArm PLTW software again (Bluetooth button active / blue to use 9600 baud rate mode).
Let us know how this goes.
Sincerely,
That was the fix. Thank you.
I also have 3 of the older gen AL5D (SSC-32) that will not connect. Is there a similar troubleshoot for these? Right now I just have a solid green led on the board.
Hi Nick,
For the SSC-32, it depends on its jumper settings for the baud rate. You can check the SSC-32 manual here. Scroll down to point #9 for details on baud rate.
Here are details from it for reference:
By default, you should have both on, which would be 115200. We recommend that you change its settings to 9600 too, so that all your arm are set on the same baud rate. This would make it simpler to use them.
Also, make sure that the jumpers at #14 are always in place (and in the proper direction).
Sincerely,
