pokietech34331 Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 Hi E1David here again. After a storm our rs485 adaptor had died and Andrew from Brisbane kindly helped us out ........but......... after the sun went down we had 5 out of 8 controllers not working. I didn't worry too much last night as i thought it may have been something simple. After extensive testing of cables, controllers ect we havn't been able to get any of them going. All they do is flash as though the cat5 cables are not connected.There is 1x 240v controller and 4x dc controllers.The three that are working are networked in different areas but all 8 are connected together by 1 daisy chain cat5 cable.Has anyone got any ideas befor i box them all up to sent to NY for them to be checked out by someone who knows HEAPS more about them than me?many thanksDavidKingaroy QLD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 David,Are these 5 controllers at the far end of the daisy chain or scattered in the chain. Please draw a picture of how these 5 units wired in the RS-485.Have you taken the 5 units and talked to them via a new cable directly without any other controllers on the RS-485 circuit? Have you done a physical inspection of the controller boards? Are they clean and dry? No visable soot marks from fried electronics. Do the controllers smell of burnt electronics? Might not see anything wrong but you can smell it.Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pokietech34331 Posted December 20, 2009 Author Share Posted December 20, 2009 Max-Paul wrote: David,Are these 5 controllers at the far end of the daisy chain or scattered in the chain. Please draw a picture of how these 5 units wired in the RS-485.Have you taken the 5 units and talked to them via a new cable directly without any other controllers on the RS-485 circuit? Have you done a physical inspection of the controller boards? Are they clean and dry? No visable soot marks from fried electronics. Do the controllers smell of burnt electronics? Might not see anything wrong but you can smell it.ThanksHi Paultried 1 controller at a time with a 1meter lead, all are dry with no smells or burnt pcb's. From my pc the cable goes into module 1 (M1not going) than to M2(going) to M9 (going) to M4 (going) than to M3,M6,M7and M8 all which are not going. (I have no M5 missed in setting them up). There was lightning and storms around but I had turned it all off but maybe too late as the serial adaptor died and a kind gentleman from Brisbane loaned me 1 which got part of the show up and running again. Hope this helpsCheersDavid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 pokietech34331 w Hi Paultried 1 controller at a time with a 1meter lead, all are dry with no smells or burnt pcb's. From my pc the cable goes into module 1 (M1not going) than to M2(going) to M9 (going) to M4 (going) than to M3,M6,M7and M8 all which are not going. (I have no M5 missed in setting them up). There was lightning and storms around but I had turned it all off but maybe too late as the serial adaptor died and a kind gentleman from Brisbane loaned me 1 which got part of the show up and running again. Hope this helpsCheersDavidTried to snip out the extra stuff. Anyway David, it looks like you did about everything I would have tried. Seeing that the modules as you are calling them are scattered (not a cable problem or connector problem). And the fact that your RS-485 was blown away. It appears that there is a good chance that the RS-485 chip on these 5 boards are blown away also. Though because you dont detect any damage to the board it's self I would imagine that the replacement of the chip might be all that is wrong. Sorry but I do not see a quick fix, maybe someone else might know know of one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pokietech34331 Posted December 20, 2009 Author Share Posted December 20, 2009 Hi again,I had an old dc board that got very wet and died last year so i removed the rs485 ic from that board and soldered it into the board with no comms. Now i have that board having a hard on red LED when it is plugged into the pc but the hardware software still cannot find it. It appears to go from there straight to the p.i.c. ic. Does that mean that the pic may also fried?? if so can they be replaced or are they preprogrammed?Any help would be greatfulCheersDavidAustralia:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 I believe they have a proprietary bootloader, to prevent people building their own cards, and installing LOR firmware.The solid LED is promising though.. Have you tried searching with max ID turned way up? Sometimes the dials don't read what they are set to, and result in the cards not being seen, because the PC did not search far enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pokietech34331 Posted December 20, 2009 Author Share Posted December 20, 2009 -klb- wrote: I believe they have a proprietary bootloader, to prevent people building their own cards, and installing LOR firmware.The solid LED is promising though.. Have you tried searching with max ID turned way up? Sometimes the dials don't read what they are set to, and result in the cards not being seen, because the PC did not search far enough.hi klbjust tried that now.still not seeing the cardsthanks heapsDavid:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Yes that is very promising to a degree. Dumb question, you more than likely have already tried this. But have you tried to do a controller reset? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pokietech34331 Posted December 21, 2009 Author Share Posted December 21, 2009 Max-Paul wrote: Yes that is very promising to a degree. Dumb question, you more than likely have already tried this. But have you tried to do a controller reset?Hi Paul I think so ....I set all id's to 0/0 and powered up unit for about 20 sec then set unit to 01 still nothingCheersDavid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Shoot, thats not all that good then. I am not familiar with the boot process that klb spoke of. Maybe that is now what is withholding the controller from booting up all of the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 The bootloader is just proprietary software installed and locked by LOR, which you won't have if you install an off the shelf PIC18 processor. It is needed in order to install the LOR firmware into the processor.By the way, even if the hardware utility can not find this controller, have you tried typing the configured unit ID into the drop down list, and telling the controller to turn lights on and off? Occasionally there are controllers that will run lights, even though they can't be found.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts