So i’ve been having this problem for about a week of so and CANNOT figure out the problem =/
i have an ATV landrover that i bought through Lynxmotion. I build a housing for it with two levels. A level for a matchport b/g and another top tower for the SSC-32 and sabertooth 2X10. The setup is powered with four JR2700 Nimh batteries and a JR1500 Nimh battery as well as a Lion for the wireless connection.
I’ve been able to get a connection without a problem and the matchport b/g to appear operational in the device installer program but when i go into visual sequencer to run the rover it won’t
The first time this happened it thought it might be a problem with the socket server, i went in there and changed the information and opened it up, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Then i decided to check out the settings in Device Installer but when i went in there i got this error code saying:
“The configuration could not be retrieved from the device.
System.Exception: Communications error.
The configuration was not recieved from the device.”
hi.
I am going to suggest you break this into two different goals, the first being getting an established serial connection through the matchport and the second getting visual sequencer to operate through that connection. Something that is important and not obvious is the visual sequencer has some timings that it is looking for and latency of a wireless connection ‘could’ play into that not working with the default settings. For testing a serial connection is working at the application level the LynxTerm application (free download from Lynxmotion) is much better since it isn’t trying to do anything timing sensitive. The error screen you show however suggests the serial connection to the matchport isn’t correctly configured either so that would seem to be the logical place to start.
my recollection, and this is from an earlier version of the drivers / redirector, is that the matchport needed to be configured exactly as the redirector with respect to baud rates and serial settings. whether that still holds true or not I can’t say for certain as it has been more than a year since I was actively using a matchport. I would recommend setting it all up for 115.2KBaud since that is what (I believe) the sequencer and lynxterm use. Also be aware that if you are using the matchport in something other than ad-hoc mode it may be necessary to map ports to in your WAP/router. This stuff is covered in some detail on the Lantronix website although it takes some digging to figure out.
Thanks for the quick reply. I’ll give your ideas a try tomorrow and see what happens. The Wi-Fi connection is in Ad-Hoc mode though, that i do know. Thanks again, I’ll update the results A.S.A.P
Okayy, so i’ve got a serial connection with the SSC-32 now and it runs fine in Visual Seqencer, but everytime i try to update the firmware, it’ll tell me to force update the firmware with jumpers on the tx and rx pins, as well as the 115.2k pins. By doing this the firmware does update but will NOT stay, as soon as i power down and remove the DB9 cable, it erases it, as if it were writing into RAM and not into EEPROM.
As for the Matchport, it’s connecting fine now, and the COM Port that i’m using to connect the SSC-32 too works fine as well; opens up and everything in CPR. But again it doesn’t find the SSC-32 in Visual Sequencer when connecting through the Matchport b/g. So I’m thinking it could be a firmware issue??
Any thoughts.
Thanks
A firmware issue with what? The normal response to folks wondering if the firmware in the SSC-32 is operating is to prompt them to test using a computer with an actual hardware serial port. Unfortunaltely this eliminates most recent laptops and a fair number of ecomony PCs. Upon testing though 99% of the time the ssc-32 boards work fine and we move onto resolving the power or communications issue. The rare duck does manage to get through and generally lynxmotion is real good about swapping stuff out (once the person has gone through the steps to verify it is in fact the ssc-32 of course).
With respect to updating the firmware in the ssc-32, I would strongly urge against trying this over a wireless connection. Heck I’d not even recommend using a usb-to-serial converter in most cases. If something times out while it is d/l and updating you could wipe the atmega controller flash memory. If you have already tried this and it’s acting buggy… I dunno what to tell you and you might have to wait until Monday to get some steering advice from Lynxmotion (or if they need to the developer of the ssc-32). If the ssc-32 talks at all it’s a good sign… but whether it can only be half there and functioning I really have no idea.
haha ya, it is a tricky situation. The SSC-32 is talking with the computer via DB9 to DB9, **NO **USB involved.
Last night after spending several hours roaming through the fourms i found serveral post that might prove usful. I think what i’m going to try first is to use a different firmware to update the SSC-32 ATMEGA-8, if all goes well then i’ll slap myself on the wrist and say silly me, because i think i was trying to install the wrong firmware :mrgreen:
And if it is the SSC-32 / ATMEGA-8 Chip, which it souldn’t be because it does still light up, and occassionally respondes to the comptuer through a serial connection, then I’ll hook up one of my other chips to the Rover design and hope all goes well with that
I do have a question though. You said
Now although i don’t believe this happened, what would be the consiqences of such an event?
Thanks again for all the input , it’s been tons of help getting me to a workable situation. Lynxterm has been tons of help and the whole “getting a serial connetion established first” saved me from going crazy
If you have wiped out the programming on the ssc-32 chip, I think you can purchase a new programmed chip from Linxmotion for ~$10 plus S&H. I don’t remember an instance of the ssc-32 firmware causing problems. The people who have thought they have had firmware issues actually had other problems with their project. When a lot of different stuff is put together and it doesn’t work, one needs to engage in a well thought out trouble shooting exercise to validate each part is working as assumed.
Hmm, well if what you’re saying is true, then i won’t feel like a complete idiot
So I’ll give the firmware update a try later today, and if that doesn’t work, then i’ll try a new chip and see if that does the job
Thanks for the input guys, it’s saved me from alot of sleepless nights
I have an atmaega 8 chip, i also have a direct link to the computer through a DB9 cable, no USB or Wireless involved in firmware update. The baud rate is set at 115.2K through the cable link.
As for the VER command, i’ll get back to you on that.
Um, what? The force firmware update does want you to install a jumper across the baud pins, but nowhere does anything tell you to jumper tx and rx together. This will prevent serial comms which will never allow programming. If you are doing this, well… there’s your problem! lol
I strongly disagree with your conclusion that having trouble using a match port to connect is an SSC-32 firmware problem. However, the new V2 chip does have the ability to change the transmit delay and pacing. So upgrading to that chip may be helpful, but I’m not sure.
okay, I’ll look into it
I also gave the VER command a try and it gave me the firmware version today?
So I’ll toggle with the board a little today and see what I can do and i’ll get back t oyou as soon as possible
Thanks
Well after several hours of testing and debugging, I’ve decided that lynxmotion and there SSC-32 cards are pretty legit, as for the matchport, not as easily configured…
So what i did today in case anyone was wondering, i changed out the Atmega chip from a 8-16 to a 168, and tested that out but i ended up getting the same results; “Cannot find SSC-32 Card”. This then brought up the question if the matchport was configured correctly, so we tested that. How so? By bringing in the other Rover that we constructed last year that does work. We hooked up the SSC-32 card on the working rover to the matchport on non-working rover and that did NOT work. So i changed it out and hooked up the working matchport to the non-working SSC-32 card. This DID work…
SO i decided that the matchport had to be configured wrong. Which it was. The TX data rate was only set at 11 mbps when it should’ve been set at 54 mbps
So all in all, everything was working correctly, it was just a simple operator error.
Thanks for the help all =)
Till next time
