USB to NIRT

Has anyone heard what's happening with the USB to NIRT cable?
Part number in April 2007 catalogue is 5100HSCU. Catalogue shows this item is available but local reps have no idea on availability...

Richo, you don't have a spare one at all ??

 

Good question. I'm pretty sure the version of Circa that supports it hasn't been released, but I'm not aware of the hardware being available.

 

No, the version of Circa that will support the new cable has not yet been released, either.

 

5100hscu

Brand new USB IR programming cable (5100HSCU) arrived today!
Hope to test this one over the week end.

Regards,

Mark

 

Not so good

Three computers (two with XP and one with Vista);
Four NIRT plates;
Uninstall and re-install drivers;
Unistall and re-install CIRCA;
Swap plug on NIRT plate (now with orange dots for alignment);
Disabled firewall;

Still no luck using the 5100HSCU lead....

Any suggestions?

Mark

 

Does Circa recognised the USB cable when you go to download, or does it present you with a selection of comports?

 

Hello Richo.

CIRCA does recognise the lead. When I use 'Transfer to Unit' in CIRCA, the first window comes up with "C-Bus USB IR Programming Cable(5100HSCU) detected. Select Start to continue."
Pressing 'Start' brings up "Error - 15200", "Communications Failure. A problem has occurred while communicaing with the NIRT. Please check the connection to the NIRT" - got the same error with the USB lead disconnected from the NIRT plate.

The phyical connection appears to be OK, so this is looking like a faulty lead. I wanted to make sure we haven't overlooked something simple, hopefully we can get a second lead this week to continue testing.

Mark

 

This reminds me of a problem I had when first writing the support for the USB cable. Basically I had a case where a Nirts firmare wasn't correct and I couldn't download using the USB. I had to re-download the Nirt firmware to get it to work. I'm on my linux box and can't check the details at the moment. It has been over a year since writing that and I can't recall the specific of the solution, but I *think* I had solved it.

One workaround that springs to mind, that might work, is to use the old Circa 1 (http://training.clipsal.com/downloads/Circa1_1.zip) to send down the firmware again (via serial). The option is in the File menu, you need to select the firmware file in the directory you install to. You might want to install this to a different machine (or VM if you have them) as it will also need the old V2 software and will trash Circa 2 if installed over the top of that. (If you have the spare time to wait you might want to wait until I have done some investigations, might take a few days as I no longer have the Circa code lying around (A different developer now maintains and develops Circa). As I said my recollections of the issues are really fuzzy so none of this may be the problem.

UPDATE: I see you have the problem on 4 Nirt plates, I can;t imagine they all have problem firmware. Might be an idea to try a second lead if possible. Also I assume you are having no problems using a normal RS232 lead with the Nirts. Also there are one or two LEDs visible in the case of the USB lead, what do these LEDs do when you try and communicate.

 

Mr Mark,

Just a thought, but if you had an open connection via C-Gate to C-Bus when trying to download to the NIRT using the USB lead, try disconnecting C-Gate from the bus first.

I've had some trouble with this too. CIRCA seems to get its knickers in a twist when examining COM ports etc. prior to downloading. This is something that we need to look at in a future version...

Please let us know if this fixes your problem.

Hope this helps.

 

Richo, while the USB lead is plugged in, there is a green LED flashing about once a second. When I try to transfer to the NIRT plate, a red LED will flash once before receiving the error messages (green LED still flashing at the same rate). As for using the older RS-232 lead, I'll have to dig out one of the older retired machines to test this.

MIB, have now tried connecting with and without an open connection to C-Bus, with the same result each time - really looks like the lead is the culprit, but we hope to trial a second one next week to confirm.

Thanks for the help guys,

Mark

 

Did you solve this problem? - does anyone have further possible solutions as I'm currently experiencing the same issue.

Cheers.

Further info: Just the one green light flashes approximately every second. The second line of the error (in addition to that descirbed above is "EComPort: Unable to open com Port (win error code: 32)"

 

NIRT USB Lead

The unit we had initially had dry solder joint. (Many thanks to NickD for his help in getting this fixed).
From memory, you should have a red LED and a green LED when connected to the NIRT plate. I've got another plate on order for home, and can confirm this when it arrives.

Regards,

Mark

PS: when you get it to work, the USB version is quicker than the previous model.

 

hmm, haven't seen a red LED so far -- the connection to the NIRT is "flimsy" - seems to be a very lose fit between the pins and the socket.

 

well, third laptop later - programming worked. The first two machines were Vista (Delphi run time error), and XP (EComPort error). Third machine was a slightly older XP laptop and programming worked fine.

 

I'm getting flash backs of when the old lead didn't work on some laptops!!!

 

The new USB programming cables are native USB devices and they have been tested under Windows XP. They have not been tested under Vista so there's a chance that there's a driver issue.

Re the EComPort error, with the current release of CIRCA there is an issue where having anything connected to COM1 on the PC will make the USB programming cable fail. The solution is to close any programs that may be using COM1 before attempting to download to your unit.

The issue with the old serial programming cables on some laptops was a hardware issue with the low-power serial drivers used by some manufacturers.