Finding controllers

[Guest guest]

I am having problems with my CBT16s communicating with the PC. Almost every time I run a show it detects a different board. I have 2 boards coded and sometimes it finds 0-1, sometimes 0-2, sometimes both and once in a while neither. I am using the serial adapter and have tried different cables. The cable lengths are about 7 feet each. Any thoughts? When it finds the cards, they work fine.



Thanks,



Joe

[Guest guest]

Fazgood wrote:

I am having problems with my CBT16s communicating with the PC. Almost every time I run a show it detects a different board. I have 2 boards coded and sometimes it finds 0-1, sometimes 0-2, sometimes both and once in a while neither. I am using the serial adapter and have tried different cables. The cable lengths are about 7 feet each. Any thoughts? When it finds the cards, they work fine.

This of course sounds like a comm problem. The 2 - 7 ft runs should be very stable... When you say: "When I run a show it detects a different board", I am not sure what you mean. Here is my guess,

You run the show and the controllers do not respond correctly, So you stop the show and go into the Hardware Utility and do a Refresh. After the refresh you do not see both cards.

If you connect only one controller with the green cable that came in the Starter kit, does it always find the controller?

What type of cables are your 7 ft cables?

Make sure that you do not have an unterminated cable coming out of the second controller.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the fast reply.

Yes, Each time I run the utility it does not consistantly detect the cards.



"If you connect only one controller with the green cable that came in the Starter kit, does it always find the controller?"

I don't recall a green cable coming with the boards. Is this different than a standard Cat5? I have standard Cat5E cables running between the LOR boards and the computer.



Joe

[Guest guest]

When you start the hardware utility, do the LEDs stop blinking on the CTB16Ds?

Are you using a direct serial connection or USB/Serial adaptor?

When you run a Show do you get bad results from the controllers like they are missing commands? (the reason I ask is that you do not need to be able to detect controllers to control lights)

Edit: to answer the ealier question (I missed) Yes standard CAT5 is good.

[Guest guest]

LightORama wrote:

When you start the hardware utility, do the LEDs stop blinking on the CTB16Ds?

Are you using a direct serial connection or USB/Serial adaptor?

When you run a Show do you get bad results from the controllers like they are missing commands? (the reason I ask is that you do not need to be able to detect controllers to control lights)

Edit: to answer the ealier question (I missed) Yes standard CAT5 is good.

"When you start the hardware utility, do the LEDs stop blinking on the CTB16Ds?" Yes

Nope. using Com 2. Have tried Com 1 too. Settings for the com ports are the defaults.

When running the show it seems to work fine on the controller that is detected. Example, if #2 is detected the patterns appear ok for that sequence. It does not detect both often but when it did this morning, I ran it through all of the preprogrammed patterns in hte hardware utility and they seem to work just fine. It really sounds like a cable/ communication problem. I will pick up a few new ones tonight and try those.



Joe

[Guest guest]

Problem solved...

Bad cables. Actually 2 of them. They test fine with the cheap-o cable tester but when I swap out the one from the PC to the controller, it finds them every time. The only difference is the new ones are cat5E but I don't see any reason that would make any difference...



Thanks for the help.



By the way.. Its REALLY cold here in the central midwest.

Joe