Getting PL8 to talk to PC

[ex-Gooserider]

After much I have finally gotten a copy of BM's suggested version of W10 installed on one of my spare laptops. Now I'm trying to get it to talk to the PL8...

I REALLY don't want to let the box talk to the Internet for various reasons, starting with the OS... A while back someone posted a .Zip of whatever it is that Revolectrix installs when running the PL8 setup program, but I can't seem to get it to install properly. Right now I DO get something that looks like the PL8 screen but it doesn't have the options to pick the com port, and it says it can't find the PL8. At the bottom of the screen is a block that keeps cycling between COM 3 and COM 4.

It does recognize when I plug in the FUIM from the PL8, (the laptop beeps) but device manager says it is an 'unknown' device - although it recognizes it as an FTDI serial adapter so I seem to need a driver (I think?)

Can anyone suggest what I need to do?

Thanks,
ex-Gooserider

[snaker]

You have to leave you PC talk to the internet, at least a couple of first days.

[Burgerman]

You are going to have to admit that win 7 or 10 is safe and connect to the internet since the rest of us has been doing in the 20th and 21st century. Its completely safe, a million times better than that backward antique part finished effort you are using. And no you dont need an antivirus or any of that safety nonsense running. I have not done so for at least this century. And never any virus, trojan, or security issues of any kind.

Or forever live in the 50s.

[biscuit]

My PC and PL8 have often refused to communicate. In my case it has usually been because the PC has forgotten which is which usb port. So I've deleted them all and let the PC find them again according to what is actually plugged in.

The PC has not ever needed a new FTDI driver.

Also I turned off my antivirus and protection (much to the machine's dismay) so as to install the software from the Revolectrix website.

That's just me and I do not like computers, so it's probably all wrong, but it has worked for me. My computer is Windows 10.

[woodygb]

Goose ... Re FTDI Driver ...Download this ... https://ftdichip.com/wp-content/uploads ... _Setup.zip

Put it on a USB stick and transfer to your offline Win10 computer....Unzip and run it.

[steves1977uk]

I'm using the 21H1 Enterprise W10 debloated and tamed. No issues running CCS.

Steve

[ex-Gooserider]

Thanks for the driver Woody, I installed it and it seemed to help.

I also turned on the networking for a little while and have downloaded updates and installed the PL8 stuff, and am now talking to the PL8 (GADS Is W10 SLOW!!!!)

I have not had a lot of luck getting the Pb bricks on the project chair to charge.... Granted they are in seriously dead shape, but I was hoping to revive them enough to at least operate some of the actuators in the seating system...

Using (I think) BM's Odyssey preset, the charger keeps starting and then a couple minutes later stops saying "pack removed, 0.8 voltage rise" (Or something like that)

I may switch over to using the ZXD as I now have figured out and made an adapter to let me use the safety bananas on the PL8 charger cord w/ the Anderson's that I've added to my ZXD....

ex-Gooserider

[Burgerman]

(GADS Is W10 SLOW!!!!)

Which begs the question what kind of antique junk are you running it on? Its not 10 thats slow!



SSD and at least 8GB memory essential. Because it certainly isnt slow here! 7 second boot. And everything instant when you click it. 500MB per sec file transwer speed. Even on my mobil (phone) 2 core CPU fanless laptop...

[steves1977uk]

W10 can run on a Core 2 Duo with 4GB DDR2 RAM quite happily but a SSD is essential. I've even had it running on a P4!

Steve

[Burgerman]

4GB? I tried it. Its slow. It isnt adequate. It cant preload enough commonly used stuff into memory. It also uses swap files etc.

4gb slow.
8gb good.
16gb no faster, only goes above 8gb when you are editing huge photos. Slow on movie editing.
32gb and above will do anything.

[steves1977uk]

I agree more RAM is better, I have 2 PC's with 128GB DDR4 and those breeze W10 easily. My daily PC has 64GB and uses under 2GB on startup.

Steve

[Burgerman]

Watch how much memory it uses when editing say 6 or 7 full size D810 or D850 images at once.
I upscale 50mpixel images by 4x before doing any editing. Then redownscale later. So as to lose almost no quality on leveling landscapes, or when applying lens corrections, etc.

Or when editing a 4k movie!

It doesent use much CPU. It murders memory and HD bandwidth.

[ex-Gooserider]

(GADS Is W10 SLOW!!!!)

Which begs the question what kind of antique junk are you running it on? Its not 10 thats slow!



SSD and at least 8GB memory essential. Because it certainly isnt slow here! 7 second boot. And everything instant when you click it. 500MB per sec file transwer speed. Even on my mobil (phone) 2 core CPU fanless laptop...

Machine is a Dell Laptop, Core2 Duo CPU, 8GB RAM, ~ 120 GB hard drive.... It was my main laptop for several years and ran Kubuntu and later Debian Linux, w/ KDE with quite reasonable performance... (Main laptop machine now is an I5, and my desktops are I7's)

I did just find an HP I5 machine on our cruft shelves the other day - It is missing a couple of keys on the keyboard (Not a big deal as I always use an external one anyway) haven't tested it yet, but if it is OK, I might turn it into a W10 box, haven't decided yet...

ex-Gooserider

[LROBBINS]

Time for me to hijack this thread because I need HELP.

My PL8, after being held up in customs for nearly 2 weeks, finally arrived. When powered up its display says it's a PL8V2 with Firmware 3.36. Connected to my PC via the FIUM3, device manager assigns it Port 7 as a virtual COM port. The CCS software has been installed and the program opens properly. However it says "No Data from PowerLab 8v2". I can load presets from files into CCS, but if CCS is closed and re-opened, it reverts to the defaults.

Please walk me through what I have to do to get the PC connected to the PL8.

[foghornleghorn]

Have you definitely got the 3 wire plug in the back of the charger the correct way round?

Is the red light on the FIUM3 coming on?

I had to reinstall drivers several times in the beginning as something wasn't right with them?

Is it not liking the specific USB port you are in? For some reason 3 out of 4 on my laptop are fine but the other one doesn't like the PL8.

[LROBBINS]

Have you definitely got the 3 wire plug in the back of the charger the correct way round?

Ah duh. No, I had it reversed. All's well now (but I will mark plug & socket so that I don't do this again).

[steves1977uk]

It's actually labelled on the PL8 in the top right hand corner. There's white, red and black circles which corresponds to the wire colours on the FUIM3.

Steve

[LROBBINS]

and my 76 y.o. eyes just see 3 dots. I've now put stripes of very bright nail polish on both the PL8 & FIUM plug.

[Arima]

My Fium came with a brown wire instead of the black that matches the markings on the pl8. And no wrapping or protection just a naked pcb. Wish I had some clear heat shrink.

[Burgerman]

Thats not how NEW ones come.

[LROBBINS]

I don't recall what colors it has (and am traveling abroad at the moment so can't look), but my brand new FIUM3 also came as a bare, un-protected board. The markings for the connector were a bit hard to see (and it can be plugged in backwards), so I used a bit of nail polish to make sure I get it connected right way around. I also used a dab of Goop on each connector, including the banana plugs, so that everything stays where it should be unless I have to unplug things for some reason. As mine is used only for chair charging, input and output are both Anderson SB50.

[Burgerman]

Maybe they have a new supplier. Who has no heatshrink... All mine and I have 4 came from singapore and are properly finished. Cannot believe they are shipping bare ones. Thats just asking for trouble.

EBay.

[Burgerman]

Mine all look identical to this:

[Arima]

I have brown/orange/yellow instead of black/red/white. But there is a thin heat shrink which I didn't notice for some reason. Seems like it should have more protection. Something like this https://www.amazon.com/Hillman-Large-Ma ... 20&sr=8-18

Cutout for the usb connection and stick it to the side of the pl8.

[expresso]

mines also all arrived with heat shrink - i buy from USA site -

[CPguy]

The http://revolectrix.com/ site is currently down. I can not reinstall the software any more. Is there a work around please?

[CPguy]

According to this they are going out of business: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthr ... C-Software

[Dan]

The http://revolectrix.com/ site is currently down. I can not reinstall the software any more. Is there a work around please?

BM posted the software here.
https://www.wheelchairdriver.com/board/ ... =2&t=10785

[woodygb]

This thread in rcgroups has download information.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthr ... ness/page3

[CPguy]

@ Dan and @ woody: Thank you very much!