RICE Assisstance

[TankAviator]

Hello all,

I have my first saber built with a CF 6.5 and color extender. Everything except the RICE port is working fine. I am using the type 1 (metal body) connector along with a recharge port (yes the ground is connected to board ground but I am not trying to use the port with the kill key installed so no ground loop present). I have installed the drivers from the product page twice without success (Win 7 64 bit). I am able to bring up the command window in the editor (ctrl + m) and view the requests being sent. I have entries such as "SeeSerial: random=2; SeeSerial: cfgrequest". When I inspect any of the entries the "p SerialMonitoring" node is outlined in red. I am assuming the correct settings for the com port are 9600 8-N-1 (which is what it is set to). I tried swapping the rx and tx pins last night but didn't even get the messages to output on the command window. I figured I would throw this out to the community before I started retrying soldering connections again.

FYI I am a software engineer and have a bachelors in computer engineering (and a lot of experience with Microchip PICs), so feel free to be as technical as needed. Hopefully I have provided enough info to at least get a sense of where I am at. If there is any more information I can provide feel free to ask. I have added debug=1 to my overrides file, but without basic communication it doesn't do me much good.

Thanks for any help in advance.
Mike

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Did you have the saber on (LED and Sounds running) when you were trying to use R.I.C.E.?

[TankAviator]

The primary switch was in the off position (no sound or main LEDs) but power was flowing to the controller (neither the kill key nor a recharge cable was plugged in and illuminated primary light was lit). It was basically in idle mode every time I tried.

I did notice that whenever I activate a function in the editor the small indicator under the saber connection status lights yellow for a quick second. I did verify that if I unplug the cable neither that light nor any commands show up. That seems to indicate at least a basic handshake is succeeding when the cable is plugged in. I do have access to a mac and can try that to try to rule out any driver related issues.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

I would recharge the battery, then turn the saber on and then try to connect to it via RICE. That should work.

[Silver Serpent]

Yes, the saber does need to be ON before RICE can be used. I don't think that's explained in the manual, but it is a necessary step.

[TankAviator]

So I figured it out. It was actually the intersection of 2 different problems. First, it looks like the pinout of the type 1 RICE port is reversed from the type 2, and the type 2 is what is shown in the manual. The 2nd problem is a bad port. I have to put pressure sideways to get it to make a good enough connection that it will talk. I'm liking the interactive color chooser. I burned through my battery just checking out all of the color/flicker options available . Thanks for your help guys.