Board dead

[DBZBT2]

After looking at the RC board, and at the website you provided, the power is solid green, program reset and RC Mode is solid orange, the others are green and not dark....... could there be a possibility that the board is rejecting the signal.

Another observation that i noticed, when the downloading did work, it stated at the bottom that its erasing the old program and uploading the new one. Now its connecting and disconnecting for about ~2 sec, and then the error box saying that "the program button is being held" comes up.

[AndyB]

If I remember right, i thought I had this problem earlier and it turned out to be a bad radio. If you have another radio, try using that.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by DBZBT2

and then the error box saying that "the program button is being held" comes up.

I know this sounds obvious, but could the button really be stuck?


I know that we had an issue this year that sounds quite similar. We are working with a few students that are not used to using anything but the default code. So, programming the RC is new to them. It was common for a student to continue to hold the programming button down for 10+ seconds. This puts the RC is some weird state that I can't describe, but I know it is not good, but is recoverable.

When this happened, we would power down the RC and cold boot it again. That usually fixed it. But once, we got stuck where I think you are. We recovered by downloading the master code (.bin file) and then our user code.
After several deep breaths, we were back on the air.

[Bharat Nain]

Call IFI. They are the best people to consult with on such problems.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

What you describe was a common occurence as I remember with v13 of the firmware. IFI tried to fix it with v14 but quickly did a bug fix and within a week or two issued v15, the current version. Also you did not state if you had any other tally lights on the RC. You may have an intermittant short due to a wayward metal shaving between two pins in one of the connecters, outputs, inputs or relay outputs. Check with a flashlight and magnifier. Remember that the reset and programming button can be remoted and a short there could be confusing the RC. Check everything.

[Roger]

We've been getting this all the time (well, once or twice this year). Program State and RC Mode lights up on the robot controller, and it doesn't reset and it doesn't download -- just stuck inbetween.

Go to http://www.ifirobotics.com/rc.shtml, download the 2007 RC Master Code (zip, 2-27-2007) Version 15 (scroll all the way to the bottom), and unzip it to someplace convienent.

With the IFI Loader, browse to that location and click on the .BIN file (you have to change the file type to see it). Download it (obviously you have to be cabled properly).

After it finishes downloading you have to download your own .HEX code again and you're back in business!

I think the reason it happens is that we downloaded code but pulled the cable before it finished, making it in that inbetween state of erased old code and incomplete new code. We did the button trick Michael DiRamio suggested for about an hour until we tried downloading the master code again. Luckily we learned this before Manchester, as it happened there and we didn't have an hour to figure it out.

And because this is in the Electrical Forum, do make sure your wires are all proper.

[Golto]

I wish I knew that a few hours ago!

Oh well, we'll have the bugs worked out by next week!