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Posted

i know this is a newbie question but i need the knowledge from those with a little more experience.

i got my new lor controller on wednesday. put in all the wires and everything seemed to be right. i went to hwu and set up the comm port (no problems). told hwu to search for my controller (i found it no problem). played with a couple of sequences and it seemed to work fine.

well then yesterday i tried it and nothing happened. the sequencer was working fine but the lights weren't lighting up. i made sure to turn on "control lights" in the play drop down. but nothing.

i went back to hwu and it tells me that it can't find my unit. i double check the comm port and it says it can't find "lor port check power and connections". the unit is on but hwu can't connect.

i've done this several times and it can't find it.

any ideas.....am i missing something.

thanks

kelly

Posted

Kelly -

Are you getting a solid red light or a flashing red light on the controller circuit board?

Solid means you have a connection between the software and the controller... flashing ligt points to a communication problem.

D.T.

Posted

im not getting a solid led light. it keeping flashing/blinking.

its like something is happening between the unit and everything else back to the software.

but i can't figure it out

Posted

Have you tried unplugging and replugging both ends of the Cat5 and USB cables? Or maybe a reboot of the machine?
If you can try a different Cat5 wire if the combination of doesn't work.

Posted

Sounds to me like the HWU lost the comm port. Is there anything in the comm port box? I had this same issue and the HWU WOULD NOT find a comm port using the auto method, I had to set mine manually. Ever since then, I've had no problems with the HWU finding my controllers.

So you may want to set this manually from the drop down box where the comm port is, see what ports are available and select one that isn't in use for anything. Once set, it should stay there and you shouldn't have any further problems.

This is what worked for me, hopefully this is the same issue that you may be having and hope this helps you get back up and running!

Posted

well i tried to check the comm port and hwu seems to find it no problem. then when it tries to find a controller it draws a blank.

i sent a ticket to the help desk and dan sent me instructions on downloading another driver for the usb and how to reset the connection. i did everything he said and it again found the comm port but when i tried to find a controller to test it doesn't find anything.

its like the usb is talking 1 language and the controller is talking in another

i tried rebooting my system. tried various controllers and tried various cat5 cables.

nothing seems to work. any ideas.

light up day is getting closer and closer.

i just don't want to end up with a house covered with lights and 3 very expensive paper weights that won't work.

again thanks for any help you can give me

Posted

have you tryed another cat 5 cable

Posted

What do you have in your SE port settings?

Edit / preferences / network preferences?

Posted

I would still try changing the Comm Port MANUALLY to a different port! I had the same issue, HWU could not find my controllers, changed to a different comm port and everything worked fine. At least try the different comm ports, refresh the controller tab after each change and see what happens.

One of those other comm ports may actually fix your problem.

I'm still thinking this is a simple comm port conflict due to the error you had stated you got, the HWU MAY FIND the comm port, but it still may be the WRONG PORT for the USB485 to the controller(s) and therefore WON'T FIND THEM!

Posted

well i checked the ports and it is assigned to comm5. when i tried to refresh it tells me it can't find any controllers. i have 1 lor unit and 2 units that i had converted from al to lor. i tried all 3 and can't get it to find them.

i tried using the comm3 port but it keeps telling me that there is an error with that port.

i tried going thru control panel and then to hwu and i keep getting a red lor icon at the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. when i put my mouse on it it keeps telling me lor:disabled. i haven't done anything. i also don't have any other lor programs running.

ive also tried about 6 different cat5 cables with no luck.

i also checked to network preferences and that all seems to be right too.

ive even reset the controllers so i don't think they are the problem.

any ideas oh smarter lor people than me?????

Posted

Hmmm, very interesting. USB from computer to USB485, cat5 from USB485 unit to controller. Comm port checks out.

If all the USB485 drivers are installed, then it should be working. I can see no reason for the controller not to be working with the possibility of this:

Open the controller, look to the right of the LED, is the little black jumper on the second set of pins? I forgot to re-install mine after doing a reset of a controller and it couldn't find it, unplugged cat5 and power cords, reinstalled jumper, powered back up and HWU found it fine. So make sure that jumper is on the second set of pins, otherwise the controller won't be found.

If it's on the correct set of pins, then I'm at a loss as to what the issue might be, especially if everything is connected properly. Without being able to see it physically to know for sure at this point, diagnosis may be a bit more difficult. Could just be a bad controller, but if it's new, I wouldn't think that to be the problem, but you never know.

Posted

ive checked all the connections and tried various cat5 cables.

yesterday i reset the controller with removing the jumper replacing it and have the system reconnect with the controller. it still didn't work.

ive been back and forth with the help desk and they suggested i plug in the usb to the controller to an ell. then go into the hardware utility and if the ell icon was on the bottom of the screen then it was talking to it. it still doesn't show it. i tried to refresh the unit with no luck and even went to the rf page to see if it could find the configuration to the wireless unit and that didn't work either. it said "cant locate rf unit. make sure the unit is powered and connected." i know that it was cause the red led on the ell unit was on so i knew it had power.

am still at a loss

it seems to me that the computer is talking the the usb but the usb isnt talking to the controller or the ell

Posted

So as I'm reading the thread, you've tried several controllers and cat-5s, same issue, so that suggests computer and usb interface to be the issue.

Think back to when it first didn't work..what did you do, what was connected or changed, etc?

One thing you haven't tried (I don't think..) is a different computer. That may narrow it down to what, to me, sounds like a bad converter. Are you sure you have a good usb cable and a working usb port?

Can you load a clean version of the software on another computer, load the usb interface drivers, and then test?

If you can, you may need to do a controller reset to get it talking. With all the testing, etc you've been doing, hard to say if you may pick one that might be a little "confused".

Posted

I am going over his way tomorrow,and going with my laptop and usb adapter just to narrow a few things down. I hope it is a simple fix but two of us working on it may get it fixed

Posted

well good news good news

james was gracious enough to come over to my house today and we've figured out what the problem was.

when i went thru my system and my usb485b unit it gave me a back port message and couldn't locate any units. so i tried another port. same result.

james hooked up my controllers with his laptop and his usb unit and it found all 3 units no problem.

so we hooked up his usb to my units thru my computer and it found all 3 no problem again.

checked thru sequence editor and everything seems fine.

apparently i have a bad usb485b or bad usb cord. hopefully i can get them quickly from lor.

once again i want to thank everyone for all their ideas and all their assistance.

i really appreciate it.

kelly

Posted

My moneys on the converter, but I have to believe you've got a usb cable somewhere in the mix to confirm it isn't the cable.

Posted

he is running a usb booster and as soon as we hooked it up it would fault out, so it has to be the booster or the cord to the booster

Posted

Right..and thats a standard USB cable...seems easy to eliminate, with either borrowing one from another device around the house, or a quick trip to target or walmart or radio shack or...

LOR's cable is a "filtered" cable with the ferrite cores on it, but for a quick good/bad test, you can go without it.

Posted

the cord is usb on one end and not on the end that goes into the booster, I used my usb 485 converter and everthing worked great on my laptop and his computer

Posted

i located another usb cable to connect from the computer to the booster and i still get the same error messages. the extra one isn't "filtered" like the lor cable but it didn't help at all.

at first we thought it was a bad port but i get an error message on all three of my ports.

i know the ports work cause ive used them for other things (ie--mp3 player, camera, phone) .

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