Cannot Contact LWDAQ Driver

[Kevan Hashemi]

A customer writes:

"On Monday, as I was trying to continue following the set-up instructions (been a while since the last time I did that, so I wanted to do a refresher upon returning from my annual leave) and ultimately test the SCT. Whilst doing that, I experienced an error whilst pressing the Contact button on the Configurator Tool (see attached picture). It seemed to be working just fine and was successfully producing a script, but after some time the error messages kept coming through.

"The IP address and subnet mask were changed a while ago according to the website's instructions in order to make the configurator contact the driver. This seemed to be successful as the software was producing script alike the website instructions (last time I practised that was end of July).

"I had someone from IT to come over and see if they can figure out on how to solve this. The first thing that came to my mind was whether the admin rights for the IP and subnet mask got revoked and ultimately changed the values I originally inserted. This didn't seem to be the case as the IT person double checked and all values (10.0.0.2 and 255.255.255.0) were the same as last time. We tried a couple other alternatives to see if this fixes the issue, such as turning everything off, resetting the LWDAQ's EEPROM configuration file by following the website's instruction, switching cables, re-downloading the software and following the set-up instruction from the beginning. Upon trying all the above, there were unfortunately still error messages coming through.

"The person from IT believes there might be a network issue as we could not ping the instrument and we could before. He also found it suspicious that the link light was permanently on and constantly lit - even after removing the Ethernet cable. He suggested that there might be a hardware fault with the network function in the driver, but again he is not sure about it.

"It was working just fine and then all of the sudden I kept receiving error messages, so I thought it might be best contacting you and see if you have any advice on the matter or if I am missing something."

[Kevan Hashemi]

Dear Kleita,

I am sorry to hear you are having trouble connecting to your LWDAQ Driver (A2071E).

"The person from IT believes there might be a network issue as we could not ping the instrument and we could before. He also found it suspicious that the link light was permanently on and constantly lit - even after removing the Ethernet cable. He suggested that there might be a hardware fault with the network function in the driver, but again he is not sure about it."

I think you are referring to the two lights on the ethernet socket at the back of the driver. One is green and one is yellow. The green one is a power light. If you have power connected correctly, the green light should always be on. The yellow light is the ethernet link light. It turns on and blinks occasionally when you connect the driver to an active ethernet interface.

It's possible that the driver's ethernet interface is powered up but still not working, but it's unlikely. I have never seen such a failure. Most likely, the interface to which you are connecting the driver is disabled. Are you connecting directly to your computer, or to an ethernet socket in your laboratory wall?

Let's suppose it's your computer. What operating system are you running? Most likely its Windows. I assume you have followed these instructions:

http://www.bndhep.net/Electronics/LWDAQ/HTML/Windows10_Setup.pdf

Please confirm details above, and I will try to have my colleague Nathan Sayer help you figure out what is wrong. He is good with Windows.

Best, Kevan

[kleitasergiou]

Dear Kevan,

Thanks for your prompt response and help. Yes, all the information stated in the earlier response is true. After spending a couple more days on the driver, I have now successfully made the driver to communicate with my computer (Windows). The only thing that I did different this time, is to hold the configurator switch a bit longer whilst resetting the LWDAQ's EEPROM configuration file. After that, everything seem to be back to normal

Many Thanks,
Kleita

[Kevan Hashemi]

Dear Kleita,

Gosh. I do apologize for the inadequacy of our instructions. We must make a video of the reset procedure so nobody else has to waste two days figuring this out. The only note I can find on this in our documentation is the statement "Keep holding the Configuration Switch for at least three seconds" in the Configurator Instructions. Easy to miss. With any luck, nobody will have to go through the same experience in the future.

Others: We will post link to video in this thread when it's done.

Best Wishes, Kevan

[Kevan Hashemi]

Here is our LWDAQ Driver Reset video, for resetting the IP address of a LWDAQ Driver:

https://www.opensourceinstruments.com/Movies/LWDAQ_Driver_Reset.mp4

Best, Kevan