USB - SpokePOV v1.4 - Unable to open port

[edrabbit]

I soldered up a couple of SpokePOV kits, lights turn on and everything looks good there. Assembled the USB dongle, left off the jumper, plugged into my WinXP laptop, pointed it at the driver when windows detected new hardware, green light is on.

Configured the software (v1.4) to use USB and click on Test port... and I get:
"Failed to open the port"

Windows Device Manager sees it fine as a "LibUSB-Win32 Devices" -> "USB SpokePOV Dongle"

Any ideas?

[adafruit]

you cant test the USB port, its only for serial and parallel (right now)

just try to use it to communicate with the spokepov

[edrabbit]

ok, it was also giving the same "Failed to open port" when trying to connect. I rebooted, uninstalled v1.4, installed v1.3b, tested, failed, uninstalled v1.3b, reinstalled v1.4, and now the test port works, and when I hit connect, it tries, but it ends up with "Failed to communicate with SpokePOV! You may want to try increasing the communications delay"

I've tried everything from 1000 -> 20000 in increments of 1000 (although I don't know if values over 10000 are even valid) with no luck yet. The dongle does have a red and a green light on at the same time FWIW. The red light goes on when I hit connect and never goes off.

[adafruit]

hmm. odd but i guess if it works now it works?
i would check your connections. if the red light is going on the dongle is mostly working. are the headers on correctly? (not backwards)
are the solder points good?
before you connect to the spokepov, remove and replace a battery to force a hard reset.
also, you can open up the dongle and go thru the Test Port procedure. the picture will be wrong but if you look at just the 10pin header and do the tests on it they should come out the same (0 or 5V)

[edrabbit]

solder points appear to be good. I went back through the instructions checking things and it looks like everything is in order, oriented the correct way, etc. I took some pictures of it so if you (or anyone) wants to take a look and let me know if I did something wrong, that would be cool. I'm definitely an amateur at soldering, but after doing two spokes I've gotten better. hehe

I'm going to go get a multimeter today and go through the Test Port procedure. Thanks!

[adafruit]

you did a good job soldering. and the pictures are really clear (it drives me crazy when people take bad cameraphone pix )
if you still have some issues maybe you can take a photo of the top and bottom of the spokepov especially near the socket and chip

[edrabbit]

Ok, snagged a multimeter and ran through the port test, everything looks fine from that standpoint. I'm perplexed and coming down to just a week before I head out to BM. *gulp* Any other ideas?

I'm wondering if it's the USB side of things and if I should just suck it up and pay for 2 day shipping for a serial connector?

[adafruit]

its most likely something wrong with the spokepov, the dongle passes the tests. i'd try more than one (if you have them) and post clear photos. at worst, yknow, the spokepovs come preprogrammed with funky images

[edrabbit]

More pictures are up, this time of the red spoke kit. I also made a yellow one and it's acting the same way. The blue one is on hold as the wrong resistors were packaged and new ones are on the way, hopefully in time.

Photos here

Anything out of the ordinary? Is there any documentation on what LEDs mean what when you first put in the batteries? I noticed that the 6th one is lit, but when I try to connect, it switches to the second one (I think), and turns the red led on the dongle. I pass the magnet over the sensor and it definitely appears that some sort of pattern is being created. I even tried wedging the connector backwards, thinking maybe the header was reversed, but that seemed to just light up all the LEDs at once, and dim them briefly when trying to connect, but still failing to connect.

[adafruit]

ok, well, can you try a different computer?

also, try not plugging it into a hub. plug it directly into the computer.

try removing the batteries and put the jumper on the in usb dongle. it will power it. might make a difference if your batteries are drained.

also you can try running DebugView which will print out some debugging information which you can copy & paste here.

[adafruit]

i just remembered you have a laptop
these things are the devil for DIY hardware.
try to find a desktop PC
it will probably just work

[edrabbit]

Yeah, laptops are understandably bad choices for DIY stuff. I've tried this on two laptops (winxp and vista) and one desktop (winxp). I realized that I used the onboard usb ports on the desktop, but did not try the usb card I installed on there. I'll give that a try and the jumper and cross my fingers.

Does it matter if it's USB 1.1 or 2.0?

[adafruit]

Does it matter if it's USB 1.1 or 2.0?

no.

[onemorebicycle]

So I just moved from my G4 Powerbook to a WinXP machine and am getting the exact problem as described in this thread.

My configuration is for USB and I've successfully gone through the 'test port' procedure.

I went and double checked all the solder connections and orientations, where applicable.

I then tried a 2nd SpokePOV and all of a sudden it all works. I went through all 3 of my SpokePOV's and it seems to magically work.

The order in which I plug in the hardware:
1) turn on the SpokePOV
2) plug in the 10-pin data cable (SpokePOV to TinyUSB)
3) plug in the USB to computer

Still doesn't work on my G4, though

[edrabbit]

I think onemorebicycle is on to something here!

Got home, swapped out the batteries for a set of new, freshly charged NiMH batteries.

1. Inserted batteries in spokePOV
2. Plugged in 10-pin cable to spokePOV
3. Plugged USB dongle into laptop (yes even the Windows Vista laptop appears to work so far!)
4. Waited patiently to make sure Windows recognized the device
5. Hit connect
IT WORKED!

This method worked for both my spokes. I haven't tried loading an image on yet, but I was able to read several different banks and verify them seemingly without problems. So excited! Will let you know how things go from here.

Thanks for taking the time to check things out and help troubleshoot!