PL 8 - Q and A section - How to Set up - Use etc,

[Scooterman]

Go to the top of device manager.
In the drop down boxes you will see SHOW HIDDEN DEVICES.
Now go down the tree and expand every item.
DELETE every single item that is greyed out... Will take a while
Now plug in the USB dongle FUIM3 and see what port it is using.
Now set the PL8s CCS to THAT port.
Now RESTART the PL8 and the COMPUTER. And finally open the CCS.
If you chose the correct port now load all the presets and say ready to start!
If not, throw away the USB cable and test again.
If still no connection turn the FUIM3 connecter 180 degrees and replug into the PL8 and reopen the PL8 CCS software...

Hi BM back from Lidl!!! I've been faffing around house hunting, give me strength

On the upside I'm buying 10 swg aluminium to make a Mark II version of the lightweight custom seat I made for the salsa, which has amazingly held up excellently and not collapsed on me while on the way to Lidl.

I going make it out of heavier gauge alu, 10swg/3.3mm.

I'd like to fine a 6 mph r-net rolling Salsa chassis to put the new seat on so I'd have a spare power chair. But not likely to find a rolling chassis so keeping me eye out for a bargain on eBay which will probably have lift/tilt which I might be able to flog.

Re bloody PL8. I went in device manager and deleted all the com ports then re-connected duff PL8. For duff PL8 CCS shows auto or COM 3 which is correct, but I still get that can't load the presets CRC message.

When I connect the good PL8, CCS gives the option of Auto of COM4. It connects to COM 4 fine and presets load.

Both the FU13 are fine, and checked them both by swapping them round.

All I can think is something has gone wrong in PL8 software?

Maybe I did wrong in connecting laptop to PL8 towards the end of the charge window. I used to do it like that as I didn't like the leaving the laptop outside on the scooter seat in case some thieving b**ard ran off with it

[Burgerman]

Try reloading the firmware. And be sure version 3.5 or 3.6. THEN load your preset.

[Scooterman]

Funny you say that cos that is what I was going to ask you.

PL8 (A) works fine manually apart from CRC fault.

PL8 (B) works fine with CCS but internal discharge circuitry blew some time ago.

So, this afternoon I charged the scooter with PL8 (B) with laptop running CCS software.

(When charged and balanced, I always like to take a couple of amps out the pack to pull the volts down as I might not use the scooter for few days)

So charged the scooter with PL8 (B), but had to do a manual discharge using PL8 (A)

While it was discharging I thought I'd have a go at plugging in the USB cable to PL8 (A) and running the CCS software. And blow me down, it show cells volts etc, but still wouldn't load the presets. So it sort of works with the CCS software.

I now bring the scooter indoors to charge as I think connecting the laptop three quarters through the charge might have messed up PL8 (A)

Tomorrow I will do as you suggest,

PS: All these (A)'s and (B)'s have got my head spinning

[Scooterman]

UPDATE:

I successfully reinstalled both 3.6 and 3.5 but the presets still wouldn't load. Repetively counts down 5secs,4,3,2,1 then CRC fault.

So I tried doing factory restore but get this pop up

[Scooterman]

SUCCESS!!!

I backup the presets from PL8 (B)

Manually deleted the presets on PL8 (A)

Then loaded backed up PL8 (B) presets onto PL8 (A) and all worked fine no more CRC fault.

And I reinstalled 3.6

So hopefully all is good now

[Burgerman]

Yep.

[shirley_hkg]

For those interested in used PL8 chargers , you got message .

[Scooterman]

Shirley - Payment sent

[shirley_hkg]

A question for BM.

Your DevCCS has extra features. How to use it fully ?
Saw (Calibration set) . What's that ? Can it re-calibrate my erroneous PL8 ?

[Burgerman]

No sorry. You can have the extra features if you want but it will not be any use if you are already using my preset.

[steves1977uk]

I think you'd need special equipment to do that Shirley. It's possible it's easy to do, but without the right tools we're stuck!

Steve

[shirley_hkg]

Would this be a candidate for our FUMI3 substitution ?

@$25 US

[shirley_hkg]

It has optic coupling , and a fuse breaker.

[snaker]

I think any serial usb cable with isolation protection will work.

This industrial one seems overkill.
https://www.amazon.com/Moxa-UPort-1150- ... B07S3ZCTSC

[shirley_hkg]

and connect as woodygb's diagram , doesn't it ?

As it is isolated , it is safe and do no harm when connected
revertedly. Right ?

[woodygb]

I think any serial usb cable with isolation protection will work.

This industrial one seems overkill.
https://www.amazon.com/Moxa-UPort-1150- ... B07S3ZCTSC

You will need TTL serial not RS232 Serial.
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/215

@ Shirley ... The RED Positive pin has been deliberately located in the middle position ( this is common practice on most R/C hardware ...see pics below ).... thus it will always be in the correct "safe" position and only the Data and GND connections will be swapped over.

[shirley_hkg]

So , new owners of PL8 have way to use BM's DevCCS. Need not bother FUMI3 anymore .

[LROBBINS]

DOES ANYONE HAVE A COPY OF PL8 CCS installer? (or a workaround for the death of the Revolectrix web site?)

I am setting up a second HP Spectre X360-14 identical to Rachi's computer, but have run into a problem installing the CCS software. I can't find an installer for it: the user manual gives a download link to Revolectrix's no longer existing web pages. That was evidently a browser-based installer that does not install in ProgramFiles (neither 32 nor 64 bit) and there is no trace of the program in Control Panel list.

For the moment I can continue to use the old Fujitsu with the PL8 but that leaves me without any backup for when it gives up the ghost. I can also not just clone the drive from the Fujitsu to the HP; at a minimum, I would the hardware-based (NIC id) license for her Loquendo TTS voices.

[Burgerman]

Yes. You just need the full setup program, includes all the firmwares too. It will run from a folder on your desktop or whatever you want.

[Burgerman]

I can also not just clone the drive from the Fujitsu to the HP

Why not?

I cloned my 7370 intel based machine to my exgf laptop, which was an HP one, and I cloned that to my rugged dell laptops (I have 2 with very different hardware) and I cloned that to my old desktop PC (intel) and to my new water cooled one, AMD and totally different hardware.

IF it wont boot then 2 options.
Be sure in bios that its all set to only UEFI and nothing legacy.
You can have safe boot on, but turn off all mention of TPM or whatever the AMD version is named.
AND IMPORTANTLY it has to be set to either RAID even if you are not using raid, or normal. Or no boot. Even if thats wrong, Macrium will fix any boot errors. Just run it and choose fix boot...

Every one of mine just booted straight up, provided bios set correctly. And was perfectly configured. In some cases I needed to add drivers ater bootup. And remove some software dedicated to amd or intel. And in device manager, I needed to "show hidded devces" and delete (uninstall) all the hidden drivers that were not required (these are greyed out and theres dozens!).

But everything worked perfectly. With 2 provisos.
All your wifi, or phone card passwords needed to be re added.
And any ID such as fingerprint data needs to be redone.

But all setup, configuration, power saving, and everything else worked the same across every machine.
Plus if in any doubt, you can run an "over the top" ltsc install afterwards and it keeps*everything* you have configured or setup or installed inc all customisation. It just ensures all the correct windows components to match hardware gets installed. Takes 20 mins to do though. And about 4 reboots.

[steves1977uk]

So , new owners of PL8 have way to use BM's DevCCS. Need not bother FUMI3 anymore .

Eh?, you need a FUIM3 or Bluetooth mod to access the "hidden" settings in CCS. Can't do that with a standalone PL8.

Steve

[shirley_hkg]

Woodgb is optimistic that stock TTL converter will substitute FUMI3. He's gonna confirm it soon, when he got his PL8.

[LROBBINS]

John,

Of course I CAN clone one drive to another. The problem, however, comes with things like this. The Loquendo text-to-speech voices have to be licensed for each machine based on the NIC of the network card in the particular machine. A new license can be obtained for the "clone", but only after telling Nuance to remove the license for another machine so that it can be transferred, and no license can be transferred more than once every 6 months. Either that or buy a new license which will cost ca. 1/3 the cost of the PC (for the set of multiple voices in 3 languages that we have).

[steves1977uk]

I've just e-mailed BM a CCS installer program that I made. Hopefully BM will test and upload here if everything works ok. This was my first attempt at creating a CCS Setup program.

Steve

[steves1977uk]

Virustotal reports two false positives from two crappy AV products ... https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/830 ... ?nocache=1

Steve

[LROBBINS]

Yes. You just need the full setup program, includes all the firmwares too. It will run from a folder on your desktop or whatever you want.

As a colleague who worked on bacterial gene regulation liked to say "It's not that simple". I already has that file, but when run it did not "see" the PL8. I would work on a computer that had at any time already had an installation done via the Revolectrix link, but not on a virgin machine.

Checking the device manager I saw that there was no driver for the FUMI3, and none could be found by the OS and, of course, the button in the PL8 window for update drivers doesn't work. However, I solved this problem, perhaps in a more-awkward-than-necessary way. I attached the FUMI3 to the old Fujitsu, used device manager to find it and from driver details found the names of the 4 driver files. Then I searched System32 and found them in the DriverStore - FileRepository and, taking ownership and granting the appropriate permissions, copied them into the FileRepository on the HP. Windows could now find and install the drivers for the FUMI3 and a "discover new hardware" click found and installed the FTDI COM port.

Now the new computer also plays properly with the PL8.

[shirley_hkg]

That's kind of complicated .

[LROBBINS]

Shirley - there probably is an easier way to get to the same endpoint. This is just the path I started down and followed to its successful conclusion.

[steves1977uk]

Lenny, the FUIM3 is just a FTDI based device. So Windows updates installs the driver for it if you click on check for updates. Or just grab the latest ones from the FTDI website here... https://ftdichip.com/drivers/vcp-drivers/

Steve

[LROBBINS]

Steve, Yes, Windows updates would pick up the FTDI drivers, but I have automatic update blocked on my computers and just periodically enable update to check for security updates. Once I'd started to do it manually, it was just as easy to finish it that way.