TinyG does not appear as a device

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  • June 13, 2016 at 8:51 pm #9801
    bl00mie
    Member

    My first TinyG board arrived in the mail this afternoon so I’ve been messing with it. When I add 12 volts (a little over 14v, actually) to the TinyG board, the blue power LED lights up, and the SpDir led blinks for a few seconds, then the PWM led stays lit. As far as I can tell, this is proper behavior. However, when I attach the board to my Win10 SurfaceBook usb port, nothing happens.

    When I attach an arduino uno with this cable/port, I hear the “new device” chime, and the Arduino Com port appears in the device manager. When I attach the TinyG to the same port using the same cable, nothing happens.

    I installed the FTDI VCP drivers using the setup-exe downloaded here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

    I’ve looked around for solutions for the last hour or so to no avail. Any ideas what I’m doing wrong? Is this board perhaps defective? Any chance a usb-enabling jumper fell off or something?

    June 13, 2016 at 9:08 pm #9802
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    The uno connects as a native USB client, tinyG as a serial USB interface; different drivers.

    Does this section of the wiki help?

    June 13, 2016 at 11:15 pm #9803
    bl00mie
    Member

    Like I said in my post, I installed the FTDI VCP driver as specified. The info about the arduino was to establish that I know the cable and USB port are functional.

    In other posts, people mentioned that if it’s working, you will see the device in the device manager and hear the “new device” windows chime. Is this not true?

    June 14, 2016 at 7:29 am #9805
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    In other posts, people mentioned that if it’s working, you will see the device in the device manager and hear the “new device” windows chime. Is this not true?

    That is correct (I assume, not a Win user here).

    In my case, tinyG is USB mini, DUE is USB micro and I have an older tinyG that is USB type B. I don’t have a Uno, so have to assume your Uno has same connector as your new tinyG.

    By the way, the LED behavior you describe is correct.

    My first TinyG board arrived in the mail this afternoon so I’ve been messing with it. When I add 12 volts (a little over 14v, actually) to the TinyG board, the blue power LED lights up, and the SpDir led blinks for a few seconds, then the PWM led stays lit.

    Do you have any other computer available to check out your tinyG+cable combo?

    When you loaded the VCP driver, did you get any messages or complaints from
    Win10. I know Win10 is uber [UBER] fussy about signed drivers.

    Here is what I see in Win10 Device Manager when I connect my tinyG to my Win10 VirtMach:
    driver

    Is that the version you tried to load/loaded?

    June 14, 2016 at 1:31 pm #9807
    bl00mie
    Member

    I tried it on a win10 desktop and it appears to be connecting fine. Without installing any drivers, I simply powered up the TinyG, plugged in the usb connection, and everything simply worked. It appears to be using a generic driver that was already in place. So.. my laptop appears to be the problem.

    This victory is bittersweet since I need to figure out why the laptop isn’t working the same way.

    At any rate, I appreciate your help.

    Edit: It didn’t use a generic driver — upon closer inspection, it loaded the 2.12.16.0 driver without my ever installing it myself.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by bl00mie.
    • This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by bl00mie.
    June 15, 2016 at 5:31 am #9811
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    Good luck and please report back if you find a resolution.
    I can’t recall someone specifically using a Surface as yet.
    It would be good to add hints to the wiki.
    I have had similar success on an HP laptop, but again running Win10 as a VM.

    June 16, 2016 at 1:58 am #9815
    bl00mie
    Member

    After several hours of a deeper dive into USB than I thought I’d ever do, I have discovered and solved (well, sort of) the problem — The short version is that there is some kind of USB 3.0 incompatibility. I can elaborate if you care. Basically, it does an enumeration of devices when it notices the new one, then asks it for its description. I can’t tell why that is failing, but it looks like there might be a timing issue or the Intel USB3 chipset is impatient, because it terminates the request, deletes the logical device constructs, and tries again (and again).

    My jury-rigged solution was to put an old USB 1.0 hub in between the device and my SurfaceBook’s port and everything seems happy. I haven’t yet made the board spin any motors — I think that’ll have to wait til tomorrow. But I’m happy as a clam that the thing shows up in the device manager and ChiliPeppr can see it.

    I’m far from an expert, but it might be prudent to investigate the board’s ability to interact properly with USB 3.0 controllers and do a VCP chip update for v9.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by bl00mie.
    June 17, 2016 at 5:10 am #9817
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    V9 and all G2 platforms are native USB interfaces, not serial over USB, interface with different drivers.

    I am no USB Guru either, but will assume for the moment that your issue is in the Surface driver, not hardware. I say that because my desktop, which provided the screen scrape above, has USB3 ports. It is true that in my case, with Win10 running as a VM there is an interface layer provided by the VM into my Linux based machine that might perhaps mask the issue.

    If you want to dig deeper, I might suggest you post a query at on one of these forums

    They see a bit more traffic. You could ask if anyone running Win10 is experiencing similar issues with USB3 ports and tinyG.

    Another solution for you, depending on your end game, might be to buy a RaspberyPi 2 or 3 to run your SPJS app, then connect to RasPi via ethernet or WiFi. Setup is quite popular with those who want to remotely operate/monitor their machine.

    I am assuming, of course, that the Surface has only USB3 hardware, ?

    The FTDI chips are more or less the standard for USB to serial adapters, I would think others may have run in to this issue.

    Is there anyway to force the Surface to ‘act like’ a USB2?
    That would likely be the same driver, so may not help even if it exists.

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