Topic: Red Running with problem

[Jumpin Joe]

Red is up and running with an error...  NO AMPLIFIER CONNECTED

The red led and two of the green yellow led's are lit on the amplifier board. Is my antenna the issue?

What should I check?

Thanks

Joe

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

HO, JOE! Welcome to the Live Blitzortung net!,.... Saw you come online a bit ago...

You mean 2 Yellows and a red?  You're in "Potentiometer" mode. If you turn the pot on the am, the lit yellows should change to adjust gain.

Open your web interface, go to settings, amplifier 1, and uncheck the box by "enable potentiometer"....
Under Main Settings, set it to manual.
Now the gains and thresholds you set under Amp 1 will control the amp.

You'll have to find your way around the controller.

To find the web address at your router, use the LCD, and look under 'net'

[miraculon]

The red LED is just a power indicator. There is only one green LED, the four in a row are yellow.
Is it two of the four just below the Atmel processor?
If it can't communicate, the amp board will stay in local control mode.

I would try a CAT5 tester on the cable and make sure it is good. I had a bad cable (and a bad cable tester to boot!) that had me going for a while.

If you are getting the four LED blinks with the reset, the processor is booting up.

In addition to the cable, I would check your solder joints on the RJ45 in both the amp and the controller. Did you try the other RJ45 antenna connector on the controller? There are separate comm lines (RX/TX) from the STM Discovery board. If one jack works and the other doesn't it will be a clue.

Check R34/R35 for value and presence on the amplifier board. These resistors are in series with RX/TX communication lines from the Atmel to the controller.

Greg H.

[miraculon]

Cutty,

He should not be getting an amp comm error even in potentiometer mode.

You're in "Potentiometer" mode.

Something is amiss if there is an error.

Greg H.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Cutty,

He should not be getting an amp comm error even in potentiometer mode.

You're in "Potentiometer" mode.

Something is amiss if there is an error.

Greg H.

Yeah, I noted that right after your first post...  ... read it too fast with these old eyes and damaged brain...

[miraculon]

Are you getting anything on the "signals" tab (of the GUI)? The oscilloscope-like function.
Lightning maps shows you as having "signals". Do you have anything on both the green trace and the red trace?

If so, you are getting output from both amps. If there is only one, it might point to the 'bad cable' theory.
You have power OK and at least one channel, if it shows something on the signals tab.

Can you control anything about the amp, like the thresholds?

Greg

[Jumpin Joe]

I changed the new cat 5 I was using with an older one. now only the Red (power) led is lit, none of the others are lit.

[miraculon]

You should have either the green LED by itself, or some combination of yellow LEDs. This indicates a problem.
Try another amp board reset. Do you still get the blinking yellow LEDs during boot-up?

Greg H.

[W7DRM (old call was W3DRM)]

Does the cat-5 cable have to be a straight-thru type with no change of pins between the input and output? Seems to me I read something about that.

[miraculon]

No, it is a standard "ethernet" type cable. I have used regular ethernet cables out of the package with no problem.
Now, if it a crossover cable, that would be different story. That wouldn't work.

Greg H.

[Jumpin Joe]

power light only...... nothing else is lit at any time.

zero signals on the display.

I ran the first hardware check on the amp board and it performed exactly as it should.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

I had a bit of trouble inserting the mega8 controller into the socket in amp board. Might check that also.

[miraculon]

Completely disconnect the RJ45 and connect a mini-USB supply to the amplifier board. (you could temporarily use the controller one)

What happens?

Do you get the four yellow LED flashes then? Will the pot adjustment sequence the yellow LEDs?

Greg H.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Your controller sent signals to server initially, but signal count has been dropping... nothing valid, but signals show...

[Jumpin Joe]

Completely disconnect the RJ45 and connect a mini-USB supply to the amplifier board. (you could temporarily use the controller one)

What happens?

Do you get the four yellow LED flashes then? Will the pot adjustment sequence the yellow LEDs?

Greg H.

Yes, all four flash.
Yes, pot will change led pattern.

[miraculon]

Do you have access to a CAT5 cable tester? I would try a 'known good' cable. Ethernet on 10/100 doesn't use all four pairs, so the fact that a cable works on your computer doesn't prove anything. The amp/controller uses all four pairs, two for signals, one for power and the other for comms.

Actually, it uses 7/8 pins. Pin 1 is no connect. 

Greg H.

[Jumpin Joe]

No, I do not have one.  Can I use DMM to test a cable?

[miraculon]

With some difficulty. You would need a couple of CAT5 punch-down receptacles and short wires coming off of them, stripped. You could short one end by pair and check continuity by pair from the other end. That is how I concluded my tester was hosed, and got another one.

There is a guide included with the keystone jack, or just Google for CAT5 pin-out.

Trying to probe the CAT5 pins directly sounds like a futile effort.

Greg H.

[Jumpin Joe]

I have tried 5 different cat 5 cables and still no luck.

[miraculon]

Did you try the 2nd input on the controller board? "IN2"
It has independent comm lines to the amplifier. It might be worth a try.
You might need recheck all of the RJ45 solder joints on both the amp and controller ends.
It's possible that there is a cold joint and it was disturbed with the RJ45 connect/disconnect.

Greg H.

[Jumpin Joe]

I will check the solder joints.... I am noticing that the green led is faintly blinking. perhaps its a poor connection. 

Joe

[Jumpin Joe]

Greg,

I have check all of the joints for the RJ45's all are good. No change

Is it safe to say the problem is on the amp board?

Joe

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

What kind of power supply????

[miraculon]

There are multiple places that it could be.

We know:
The Atmel processor comes up and blinks the LEDs.
The ADC of the Atmel reads the pot and controls the LEDs.
The red LED comes on, indicating along with the functional Atmel that 5V is getting there.
The green LED (which only will work when the controller puts the processor into local gain mode) has not lit or lights dimly.
An error condition is generated at the controller indicating that there has been no communication with the amplifier micro.

Is RN1 in correctly? Is the "dot" for pin 1 aligned correctly?

Per the instructions:
A resistor star network has a dot at one side. This side has to be placed at the
crossed pin beside the red power LED.

Green LEDs require a higher voltage than red or yellow. If the resistor network was in reversed, the red LED would pull the voltage down on the green LED due to a voltage divider from 5V. I would double check that.

The faint green LED might be an unrelated symptom.

Were you able to try the other connector on the controller, the 2nd channel? Did you check R34/R35 for solder and correct value of 330 Ohms? These resistors are in series with the RX/TX lines that are the communication link to the controller.

Since this is on another RX/TX pair of lines from the ST board, it might be an interesting test.

The micro is good, but the comms are hosed. We need to concentrate on seeing why the boards aren't "talking" to each other.

Greg H.

[Jumpin Joe]

Power supply is an apple 10w cell phone charger.

Dot is with the dot next to the power led for RN1

The green led is not lighting up..... thought it was faint.

I did try amp 2 connection.... no change. R34 &35 are 330Ohms solder joints good.