getting started, dongle drivers

paulherrinpaulherrin
edited December 2014 in Software
so, first off i should be clear that i know very little and virtually nothing about eeg at this point. any general/introductory resources would be great if anyone can point me in the right direction.

i'm trying to boot up my equipment but i keep getting an initialization failure in the gui. both blue lights are on, but they're not connecting :/
i've got the 32-bit chip, anyone else having this trouble or am i doing something wrong here?

Comments

  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    edited December 2014
    Paul, hi.

    It would help if you supply what OS you are using and version.

    I see an error on our Getting Started photos, http://docs.openbci.com/01-8bitstart

    The photo of the Dongle there shows the switch in the 'Reset' position (look on the back). It is shipped in, and normally is in the 'GPIO_6' position. When you plug the Dongle in, you will see a device show up on your computer.

    * On Mac in a Terminal window, do an "ls -l /dev/tty.usb*". Will look something like "/dev/tty.usbserial-DNxxxxxx"
    * On Windows it shows up as a COMx port in your Device Manager

    If the serial port is not showing up, use the Search box (lower right in the forum) to search for VCP.  This explains some tips on the Virtual Com Port used by the Dongle.

    For some intro material see:


    William
  • paulherrinpaulherrin
    thanks, i'll try it out
    i'm on osx 10.9.5

    thanks for the links
  • paulherrinpaulherrin
    my system is not recognizing the usb dongle...
  • paulherrinpaulherrin
    on my windows 7 machine it's asking for drivers, showing up in 'other devices' as 'FT231X USB UART'
  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    edited December 2014
    Paul, hi.

    Mac OS X 10.9.5 is Mavericks.  Please follow the directions at this link, (as suggested previously when I mentioned searching on 'vcp'),

    http://openbci.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/196/os-x-and-virtual-com-ports-mavericks-yosemite-note/p1

    Which OS are you preferring to use?  On Windows, the driver is automatically installed once the dongle is inserted.  Did you allow it to do the automatic install from Microsoft?  If the auto install had problems (unlikely), then you can do a manual install from the FTDI VCP page,

    http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

    If you use their installer, please uninstall any previous drivers first.

    I assume your dongle switch is NOT on 'Reset'.  You say "it's asking for drivers" but then "showing up as FT231X...", which implies the auto install worked.  Are you specifying THAT particular COMx port in the Processing GUI startup?  You have to match the serial port with what you have installed.

    Regards,  William

  • paulherrinpaulherrin
    yep, was just getting on to say i found the drivers and the dongle is working just fine. the auto-install of the drivers did not work (probably because my windows machine is not connected to the internet) anyways, thanks for your help!
  • mousemouse
    Hi,
    I'm also having problems with the dongle and the software. Any help would be appreciated.

    When I plug the dongle in, nothing happens, I don't even get a light on the dongle. I'm using a laptop with windows 7 on it which is supposed to recognize it when you plug it in but it does nothing. I have the 8-bit card. I've checked the device manager and can find nothing there either for the dongle. I have 3 USB ports on my computer and I've tried it in all 3, but nothing happens. I also checked to make sure the dongle was set to GPIO_6 instead of reset.

    When I turn the 8-bit card to PC it quickly flashes a blue light which then goes out so I'm assuming it's working.

    I tried to run the software as well but when I try to run the OpenBCI GUI inside Processing I receive this error:

    Framebuffer error (unknown error), rendering will probably not work as expected Read http://wiki.processing.org/w/OpenGL_Issues for help.
    OpenGL error 1286 at bot beginDraw(): invalid framebuffer operation
    ControlP5 2.2.2 infos, comments, questions at http://www.sojamo.de/libraries/controlP5
    RESIZED
    OpenGL error 1286 at top endDraw(): invalid framebuffer operation
    Framebuffer error (unknown error), rendering will probably not work as expected Read http://wiki.processing.org/w/OpenGL_Issues for help.
    RESIZED

    and the OpenBCI_GUI window comes up blank. I have copied the "controlP5" and "gwoptics" folders into Processing/libraries inside my documents folders as per the instructions so I don't think that is the problem. Could the error be because my computer isn't recognizing the dongle?

    Thanks for any help you can provide.

  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    edited December 2014
    Mouse, hi.

    (1) If your Windows 7 does not have the dongle driver, it will not recognize the hardware.  Normally newer Windows 7 machines will automatically install the driver.  Yours is not for some reason.  Try downloading the installer from the previously mentioned link,  


    (2) OpenGL errors usually indicate your graphics card drivers / software may not be up to date.  Or your graphics hardware does not support OpenGL at all.  Find out what hardware you have and visit that site to see if updated drivers are available.  Just for reference, why don't you list your laptop info here, manufacturer, model, graphics hardware, etc.  The lack of dongle driver should not prevent Processing from running. 


    William
  • mousemouse
    Alright,
    I updated the drivers for my graphics card and that seemed to get the
    OpenBCI_GUI to work. I at least got to the menu on it where I could open
    a file or playback a file although I have no files to playback yet. I
    have also made sure windows was updated.

    Now all I have to do is
    get the dongle working. The computer still does not recognize it at all
    and there is no light on it. When I bring up the device manager all that
    is there is under "Other Devices" it says "Unknown device" I've tried
    to get windows to install the drivers and it comes up with "device not
    found" I went to the website above to download the drivers and
    downloaded the one for Windows version 2.12.00 WHQL Certified. It is an
    exe file and when I tried to update drivers and browse for drivers it
    wouldn't find the file so I clicked on it to install since it's an exe
    and that didn't work either. Maybe I downloaded the wrong driver? Any
    other suggestions?

    I'm not even sure if the unknown device is the
    dongle because it still lists an unknown device even when I don't have
    the dongle plugged in.

    My computer info is as follows:
    Manufacturer: ASUS
    Model: U56E
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30Ghz
    6GB RAM
    64-bit operating system
    Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
    Graphics card - Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000
  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    Try some of the steps in the install document. Would suggest trying their uninstall procedure first.

    The previous version 2.10 is another possibility you could try. Note the 2.12 installer is an exe that should run when double clicked.  (Provided it doesnt get confused with something previously installed or partially installed.)  The older installer is a zip, that is installed with the steps in the pdf.

    Not sure what to say, other than you have an unusual situation. Can you try on another laptop? At least so we can verify the hardware is working. I believe all boards are tested before they are shipped.
  • paulherrinpaulherrin
    make sure it's not upside down. it will fit in both ways...
  • mousemouse
    edited December 2014
    I can't find the driver files to uninstall. I did however uninstall that unknown device from my device manager. I plugged in the dongle again and nothing. It doesn't show an unknown device either in the device manager so I don't think it was the dongle. I also downloaded that 2.10 but I can't figure out how to install it because there is no device to look for drivers for.

    I plugged the dongle in on another laptop and it didn't register anything either, although the laptop was also an asus. I also tried plugging it into an old XP machine but even doing a search for new hardware couldn't find it.

    Thanks Paul, I checked it and it's not upside down.
  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    OK, the other machine tests were very helpful. So no lights come on in the dongle on any of these machines? Sounds more likely that you have dead dongle hardware at this point.

    Send an email to [email protected] describing all that we've tried (just link to this forum page). They will probably shoot you out a new dongle. Sorry for this inconvenience.

    The OpenBCI main board IS capable of BLE, Bluetooth Low Energy, which can talk without the dongle. But I have not heard yet of anyone trying it (other than Joel), and the data rates are also substantially lower.

    William

  • mousemouse
    Thanks for all your help.
  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    Hi mouse,

    Well, it sounds like you have an unwell dongle.
    When you plug it in, the blue LED should light up regardless of your computer's ability to talk to it.
    I will contact you off the forum to arrange a replacement.

    Joel
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