Newbie help

R

revdennis

New member
I actually built my controller 2 years ago, and I was not able to put up my displays for a variety of reasons.

I have not been able to get the "set the real time clock" step to complete as I cannot get my PC to associate with the HNS network.
There does not appear to be any error file on the sd card.

Here is what I can see:

1. Computer sees the Xbee pro, and it is set to com 1, and the "on" "off" works, but it does not find the HNS network.
2. The heartbeat LED on the main (only) board shows a steady on off pattern (1 sec on 1 sec off)
3. The Audio plays a ticking metronome sound
4. The only other signal light is the Ai light which shows a steady .5 sec on .5 sec off sequence. No other Leds are lighting.
5. the light on the Xbee connected to the PC is on steady and the indicators in the HNS app show : [ON] [TX]
6. PAN is 1103 (default)
7. The PC is running windows 7.
I pulled the sd card and there was no error file.

I emailed greg, but I was hoping this was a common newbie issue.
I could not find any documentation on what the flashing Ai light means.
 
Once I set the clock my show started playing.
Now my only issue is that "metronome" clicking sound.

Any idea what causes that ?
 
Welcome to the Helix community. Glad you were able to solve all of your questions on your own. :)

I'm not sure what metronome sound you are referring to. Are you talking about a sound from your Helix Main board itself, or from the MP3 player?
 
I have never witnessed or heard of anyone else having a metronome sound from the audio jack. My initial guess would be that there is a loose ground connection that is allowing the audio jack to pick up noise from somewhere on the board (probably the XBee). If it comes back check the solder joints on the MP3 player board, MP3 socket, and the audio jack to make sure you don't have a cold joint.

BTW, the AI LED is an Association Indicator. Unfortunately, the AI LED will always flash on the XBee network coordinator (the XBee that is on the Helix Network Controller), so that indicator isn't very useful. However, the AI LED will only flash on the XBees that are end devices (the XBees used by the Helix Network Supervisor and the Helix Network Nodes) when they are associated with the XBee network coordinator. So in this case you can look at these LEDs and see if the XBee is part of the network.
 
The metronome sound went away, and it never came back. Not sure what was causing it. As of Saturday we have working blinky flashies and I am so very happy. I have been looking forward to this since I started in November of 2012.
The only remaining problem I have is some sort of RF feedback via the audio cord. I had read somewhere that putting an inline volume control in the cord could help isolate the RF feedback, and since I cannot find the one I bought years ago when I read that, I have ordered a new one. We are already talking about the all the things we want to add next year.

Greg, are you still working on enabling some of those wonderful looking features in the network controller software that are greyed out ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top