Q16 getting hot

[sparky741]

Hello everybody.

I'm having a problem with my CTB-16KV6 and hoping for some advice. Board powers up and LED flashes like expected. I am not able to communicate with the board and our pal Dan had recommended some things for me to check. After going through the troubleshooting guide, I found the 5V regulator getting hot. What is strange is that I am reading a solid 4.98-5.00V at the J0 header, so it does not seem like a dead short. It takes maybe a minute or two for it to heat up. I looked for solder bridges and bad joints on both sides, but I can't find anything. Anybody have any ides what or where else I can check?

[FBW4]

The regulator WILL be hot.
If you followed all the trouble shooting tips, and you ARE sure you did, return it for repair. I understand they are VERY good about that from a friend/forum member.

[sparky741]

I decided to go back through the troubleshooting guide just to make sure I didn't miss anything and I came upon something strange. The part of the guide about resetting the board says for the deluxe kit to set the ID switches to 00, power up and you should have the LED flash twice, pause, flash twice, pause, etc. Mine doesn't do that. It has the long on, quick pause cycle. Am I having a firmware issue? I finished going through the troubleshooting guide and everything else is good as far as component placement/orientation and such. Anybody else have this happen?

[LightORamaJohn]

sparky741 wrote:

I decided to go back through the troubleshooting guide just to make sure I didn't miss anything and I came upon something strange. The part of the guide about resetting the board says for the deluxe kit to set the ID switches to 00, power up and you should have the LED flash twice, pause, flash twice, pause, etc. Mine doesn't do that. It has the long on, quick pause cycle. Am I having a firmware issue? I finished going through the troubleshooting guide and everything else is good as far as component placement/orientation and such. Anybody else have this happen?

Your micro escaped from manufacturing without having the firmware downloaded into it. Our mistake. Connect only that controller and do a firmware download using the Hardware Utility. You can get the firmware on the support page. Hopefully, nothing physical is wrong with the board.

[LightORamaJohn]

One other thing, I don't know how hot your voltage regulator gets, but if you still can't get it to work, try removing U1 the RS485 chip. Then power the board up and see if the VR still gets hot. If it doesn't, there may be a problem with the RS485 chip or the soldering of the socket or the soldering of the network jacks.

[sparky741]

Thank you for the reply. I will give it shot. My first request for help was because I was not able to establish communication with the board. The regulator gets fairly warm, to the tone of not being able to touch the heatsink after about 2-3 minutes. Sound to you like a bad RS485 chip as well as an unprogrammed PIC? Just my luck. LOL I will post if I make headway or not. Thanks again.

[sparky741]

Got it figured out...well, kinda. Went over the entire board again, reflowed every joint. Checked and rechecked again for solder bridges, everything looks good. Tried to communicate again at home, no luck. Decided to take it to work and give it a shot on my work computer. Worked first try! Tested all channels and is working like a champ. So it seems my home computer is the problem. Not good since it is supposed to be the one that's going to be running my shows. It's an E-machine, circa 2001 vintage. Any ideas why my computer would be causing a problem? I'm going to try it on my work laptop, and if it works, I'll be OK for now. What can I check in order to get my computer talking to the LOR board? I'm using the SC485, WinXP SP2, LOR v. 1.6.3.

[LightORamaDan]

Sounds like it could be a problem with the serial port. Hard to say for sure.