USB485's - Do these go out often?

[DShipley1]

Do these go out often?  I was using mine and i wanted to put everything on a more updated computer so i could start using my lights to music.  I unplugged the green cable moved it to the other computer and now my controller will not connect.  I have 2 computer engineers trying to figure it out and they just dont have a clue what to even look at anymore.  Ive changed cables, made sure all software and drivers were updated and installed...and still nothing.

[Mr. P]

If you moved it to a new computer did you install the drivers?

[TheDucks]

1 hour ago, DShipley1 said:

Do these go out often?  I was using mine and i wanted to put everything on a more updated computer so i could start using my lights to music.  I unplugged the green cable moved it to the other computer and now my controller will not connect.  I have 2 computer engineers trying to figure it out and they just dont have a clue what to even look at anymore.  Ive changed cables, made sure all software and drivers were updated and installed...and still nothing.

Hopefully you moved more than the Green Cable (that is the color LOR provides, but it can be any color CAT5).

Please say you DID NOT plug that cable into the Ethernet jack on the mainboard. You need to use the LOR USB adapter (and you MUST install the LOR drivers before attaching that the first time

[dibblejr]

6 hours ago, Mr. P said:

If you moved it to a new computer did you install the drivers?

This is the probable answer.

The other problem “I have 2 computer engineers trying to figure it out”. LOL

[BluMan]

When a USB485 gets installed in a computer, it is given a COMM Port.  When you use the same computer, that particular USB device should always get that same COMM Port.  When you move that USB device to another computer, the new computer will itself assign a COMM Port to that device.  It might not be the same one that was on the other computer.

Unplug the device from the new computer, open device manager (put it in windows search at the bottom left) and then once that's open, look at the COMM Port section and make note of which ones are there.  Plug the USB device back in, watch the screen and that USB device should be given a COMM Port (A new COMM port will be added).  You then have to go into your network preferences on the new computer and make sure the LOR network that you want to use with the USB485 has the correct COMM Port configured.

That's my guess since the problem is really because the COMM port is different and LOR doesn't know where to send that data.  A computer engineer can probably see errors, so even with no errors, if you don't tell LOR which COMM Port to use, it just won't work.

Edited December 17, 2020 by BluMan

[Orville]

20 hours ago, BluMan said:

When a USB485 gets installed in a computer, it is given a COMM Port.  When you use the same computer, that particular USB device should always get that same COMM Port.  When you move that USB device to another computer, the new computer will itself assign a COMM Port to that device.  It might not be the same one that was on the other computer.

Unplug the device from the new computer, open device manager (put it in windows search at the bottom left) and then once that's open, look at the COMM Port section and make note of which ones are there.  Plug the USB device back in, watch the screen and that USB device should be given a COMM Port (A new COMM port will be added).  You then have to go into your network preferences on the new computer and make sure the LOR network that you want to use with the USB485 has the correct COMM Port configured.

That's my guess since the problem is really because the COMM port is different and LOR doesn't know where to send that data.  A computer engineer can probably see errors, so even with no errors, if you don't tell LOR which COMM Port to use, it just won't work.

I don't think this always holds true.  Over the 10 years I've used the same USB485B adapter, I have moved it to other computers I've used or have, every time I had moved it to a new computer {pre-installing the FTDI drivers and LOR Software before I ever plugged it into a USB port on the new computer}, it always went to the same Comm port on every system I plugged it into, it has always stayed on Comm3, my red HS adapter always comes back on Comm4.  

They have never shifted from the first Comm port they attached themselves too from my first system I installed the USB485B on 10 years ago!

Maybe I've just been lucky or the way I move mine has something to do with keeping them on the same Comm port.

 

[Orville]

On 12/16/2020 at 6:05 PM, DShipley1 said:

Do these go out often?  I was using mine and i wanted to put everything on a more updated computer so i could start using my lights to music.  I unplugged the green cable moved it to the other computer and now my controller will not connect.  I have 2 computer engineers trying to figure it out and they just dont have a clue what to even look at anymore.  Ive changed cables, made sure all software and drivers were updated and installed...and still nothing.

Using the same USB485B adapter I purchased in 2010, going on almost 11 years {01/2021) and still using it with no issues or problems.   I don't think they are very likely to go out.   I had thought my red high speed adapter went about a month and a half ago, nope, it wasn't the adapter that went bad, it's USB cable  went bad. 

Fortunately I had a USB plug kit that had a USB port to the same size that fit the red adapter port, used that and checked the red adapter, still working, plugged it's USB cable that came with it into a device that it would power up and charge, didn't connect.     

So it could be the USB cable from the computer to the adapter that has gone bad, not the actual adapter itself.

 

[TheDucks]

4 hours ago, Orville said:

I don't think this always holds true.  Over the 10 years I've used the same USB485B adapter, I have moved it to other computers I've used or have, every time I had moved it to a new computer {pre-installing the FTDI drivers and LOR Software before I ever plugged it into a USB port on the new computer}, it always went to the same Comm port on every system I plugged it into, it has always stayed on Comm3, my red HS adapter always comes back on Comm4.  

They have never shifted from the first Comm port they attached themselves too from my first system I installed the USB485B on 10 years ago!

Maybe I've just been lucky or the way I move mine has something to do with keeping them on the same Comm port.

 

Orville, It was a combination of your New (fresh) system and Luck. Com3 is the first POSSIBLE port (used to be RS232 Serial/Modem way back when there was LPT and COM ports. and on my laptop, it is still the Modem)

That same laptop had been previously been used in the field , So MY first LOR adapter came up COM11

<rant> It is COM not Comm. Look at the pull down in HU. Somewhere along the way LOR started writhing Comm  in their manuals.

COM, LPT, AUX, CON, NUL  are Windows Ports (some have numbers) </rent>

[k6ccc]

1 hour ago, TheDucks said:

COM, LPT, AUX, CON, NUL  are Windows Ports (some have numbers)

Actually, those designations long pre-date Windows...

 

[TheDucks]

43 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

Actually, those designations long pre-date Windows...

 

and many were used by CPM before MSDOS

(I did not mention MSDOS because only You and I are probably the only ones who did 😛 (I even had Windows for Workgroups for DOS that allowed my DOS PC to connect to W3.11.  WFWG. That did not last long: to flaky. I went with Netware, turned on the console display about once a month, just to check. It just ran all my HO networked printes without a hitch)

I

[k6ccc]

6 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

(I did not mention MSDOS because only You and I are probably the only ones who did

You trying to say that we're old?  Of wait, we are...  My first computer was an Amiga 1000, but been playing with computers long before that.  My room-mate had the original IBM PC model 5150 when it first came out (two floppies, and 64K or RAM - until he added another 256K).  I can remember having to drop the dial up connection down to 110 baud because we could not get 300 baud to run down the phone line right...  And I still have three teletype machines...  Love watching those run

 

[Mr. P]

My very first was a Commodore 64 back in the early 80's. I remember a game with a wizard where you would tell him to go left or some direction or pick something up. Don't remember what it was.

[PhilMassey]

My first real computer was  a Sinclair ZX 81 kit in 1981.

1 kB of ram with a 16 kB expansion.

Took 20 minutes to type in a program...... then the power plug would pop out.

Had a bunch of HP programable calculators through the 70s. Still have an HP 41C. Best calculator ever 

[dibblejr]

4 hours ago, Mr. P said:

My very first was a Commodore 64 back in the early 80's. I remember a game with a wizard where you would tell him to go left or some direction or pick something up. Don't remember what it was.

We played some sort of pilot game in the Green images like our old Green Machines with those huge floppy disks.

JR

[Orville]

11 hours ago, TheDucks said:

and many were used by CPM before MSDOS

(I did not mention MSDOS because only You and I are probably the only ones who did 😛 (I even had Windows for Workgroups for DOS that allowed my DOS PC to connect to W3.11.  WFWG. That did not last long: to flaky. I went with Netware, turned on the console display about once a month, just to check. It just ran all my HO networked printes without a hitch)

I

I know all about those i made bold above.  First system I ever used at home was a 4K radio shack TRS80 with CASSETTE drive.  No hard drive and no floppies for it in 1976 when it came out for the home market.   I think it was close to almost a year before 16K and floppies were available.  Not sure when the hard drives finally came about, w whole whopping 10MB was the only thing available when they came out and you had to buy the expansion port to use the floppy drives or hard drives if my old feeble memory serves me on those old Radio Shack boat anchors!   AKA as a TRASH-80.  

And anyone remember the Timex Sinclair, the $99.00 cheapo system? LOL  

And then there was also the Radio Shack Color Computer, then the Coco2 and lastly the Coco3 before they got discontinued.   One of the the first computers to use game cartridges.  

Ah, the great and wondrous ancient home computer systems that many of us cut our first computer teeth on.

And let's not forget those </joke>lightning fast</joke> 300 Baud external modems and the sounds they made using a standard dedicated home phone line to use them.

As for Comm, I keep doing that because of #1, the way LOR tends to abbreviate it, and it seems to make more sense since communications is spelled with 2 m's.

14 hours ago, TheDucks said:

Orville, It was a combination of your New (fresh) system and Luck. Com3 is the first POSSIBLE port (used to be RS232 Serial/Modem way back when there was LPT and COM ports. and on my laptop, it is still the Modem)

That same laptop had been previously been used in the field , So MY first LOR adapter came up COM11

<rant> It is COM not Comm. Look at the pull down in HU. Somewhere along the way LOR started writhing Comm  in their manuals.

COM, LPT, AUX, CON, NUL  are Windows Ports (some have numbers) </rent>

Uhn, NO!  In the LOR HU, Comm is how it is, it is not Com.  See screen shot of the 4.4.14 HU below.  So that's where and why I tend to abbreviate as Comm now.  If words{and technology} keep changing, like slang terms, as well as abbreviations also get changed, then Comm is just as accurate now as COM was in the past.  At least that's how I now view it.  Either would now be correct.   As LOR aren't the only folks doing this.

[Don]

27 minutes ago, Orville said:

Either would now be correct.   As LOR aren't the only folks doing this.

No, either would not be correct.

It's COM. Anyone who uses something else is wrong. (And it doesn't matter how many wrong people there are, it's COM)

 

[Orville]

24 minutes ago, Don said:

No, either would not be correct.

It's COM. Anyone who uses something else is wrong. (And it doesn't matter how many wrong people there are, it's COM)

 

Then LOR should correct all this on their manuals and software then?  Is that what you're telling me? 

I know some aerospace/electronic companies that use this same abbreviation now. 

Because as the screen shot I posted shows, it shows Comm, NOT Com.   So I guess that makes LOR just as wrong then.  

And I'm not the one that said it's wrong, and folks that get anal over an abbreviation have much bigger issues than I!

 

[Don]

I don't care what they do. It's COM.

Not really interested in having one of those conversations where you say the same thing over and over and over (and over) just to make your point.

[Orville]

Case is closed as far as I am concerned.

[dgrant]

DOS 1.0 !! Actually my first computer was an analog inertial navigation system and not mine...lol. First software I ever wrote was machine code at the CPU level. Next was IBM29 card punch and then upgraded to ASR33/35 teletype with paper tape. Used it as a bootstrap loader to then run a mag-tape which loaded "Assembly" based machine code. We're not old, just gracefully becoming wise.