USB Dongle stopped working suddenly

ntlanhntlanh
edited November 2015 in Cyton

Hi all,

I am having a problem related to the USB dongle and I
would like to ask your opinions if any of you met it.

I have worked on the board for a few
hours of programming both the Processing code and modifying the board firmware.
It had been detected well until some tens minutes ago. Now the lights in the
USB dongle (both red and blue ones) doesn't show anymore while I was collecting
the data. I tried to test it in different PCs as well and got unsuccessful
effort. None of others can detect it anymore.

Have anyone had this problem? Could
anyone show me if there is a way that I can check whether the USB dongle is
still alive? or if there is any things I should consider to make it work again?

In case it cannot be fixed, does anyone have
experience of getting a new USB dongle only?

Could there be another way to
collect the data and stored in the card without a need of USB dongle? I tried to run the Android app supported in Github but the board cannot be detected even though I switched it to BLE.

Comments

  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    Can you tell us how you modified the board firmware? That may be part of the issue.

  • ntlanhntlanh
    I simply changed the board firmware to test it by not writing the acceleration in the packet sent to the PC (OBCI.useAccel = false). That's all what I did. It still worked well for a while after that change.
  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    Ok, please tell me a few things.
    Your order number from when you purchased the device.
    Tell me what exactly happens when you try to run the board. From plugging the Dongle in, to trying to get data from the board.


    When you say that the blue LED on the Dongle doesn't light up, that makes me think that Something is wrong with the board. 
    Can you try to re-program the Dongle?l
  • ntlanhntlanh
    My order number is 1650 (Po #: 650 shipped on 09/30/2015).

    I haven't re-programmed the Dongle yet. In my opinion, there was something wrong with the Dongle because the PC cannot detect the Dongle anymore. I tried with different PCs as well as different USB ports in those PCs.

    My progress was that I plugged the Dongle in the USB port in the PC, turned the board on, and first did change the Processing code to get the data I needed. After that, I did change the firmware since I wanted to change the content of the packet sent. I first studied how to update the firmware using Arduino IDE by only changing not to write the acceleration and uploading the changed firmware to the board. It still worked well then in some running times. I left it there and it didn't work more when I was back to my work on it in some ten minutes later.
  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    Ok, so the PC cannot detect the Dongle.
    Does the Dongle blue LED light up when you plug it in?

    There may be an issue with the USB Serial Driver from FTDI, Can you try and re-install the driver?
  • ntlanhntlanh
    I did re-install the driver. But still, the Dongle blue LED didn't light up when I plugged it in before and after re-installing the driver.
  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    We can replace the Dongle for you. Please email joel-at-openbci-dot-com and we can arrange the swap.

  • ntlanhntlanh
    Thank you very much for your help since our research project needs to be reported in December and we cannot have the signal without your board.
  • fzwindfzwind
    I've used OpenBCI for our research and it worked well for couple of time
    Last week I got some trouble, I must wait the usb dongle connected for long time, but after that It worked
    Now, our usb dongle just show the blue light LED but not shown in device manager, I try in other laptop and had same condition
    I try to re-install the driver but not solve my problem
    I want to know, is the dongle broken?  How can I check that the dongle is fine?

    Thanks before
  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    edited December 2015
    @fzwind , hi. I merged your question about your dongle into this existing thread. See some of the previous posts. For example have you tried reinstalling the FTDI driver?

    In your case you do have the blue LED. Have you tried reprogramming the dongle firmware?


    However if you are not seeing any COM port, Joel @biomurph , can the upload still work in that case?
  • fzwindfzwind
    I have tried reinstalling the FTDI driver
    I got sound notification from my windows when the dongle connected but now I don't hear it anymore
    I never tried reprogramming the dongle firmware before

    Today, I tried upload but the board is not detected 
  • wjcroftwjcroft Mount Shasta, CA
    @fzwind , hi.

    Please email joel-at-openbci-dot-com and ask him how to proceed. Sometimes there are a dozen things going on at once in the OpenBCI lab and your email will get the attention.

  • biomurphbiomurph Brooklyn, NY
    thanks @wjcroft.

    Please email me @fzwind, and we will get to the bottom of it. If it requires replacement, we can work it out.

    Joel
  • fzwindfzwind
    Thanks @wjcroft, @biomurph
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