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I just bought a new (third one) DLP 3000 lightcrafter but it does not work

Hi,

As I said, after having troubles with my last TWO Lightcrafter I bought YET ANOTHER one. 

Opened the LCr, powered it on, connected to my PC, and what I see is the following:

- The splash/pattern screen does not show. Instead, it flashes for a small fraction of second every 30 seconds or so

- If I see my Network connection it appears as the LCr connects as RNDIS device but immediately it disapears. It is connecting and disconnecting

- The LED's are not showing any shutdown protection mode.

- The LCr has not been modified at all.

- I see the current consumption is 380 mA up to 400 mA sometimes

- I see the voltage on my power supply is 5.20 V 

I found this insane, I mean this is the third one LCr I bought and three were problematic ones???!!

Please help!

  • Pepe,

    I am so sorry that you're having trouble with yet another Lightcrafter. At least now we know where we're starting from. Some questions to get started:

    - Is there any indication on the box what version this might be? I'd like to know if you're getting back stock from your supplier. Did you order directly from TI.com?
    - Is your power supply 5V, 3A?
    - How long is your USB cable?

    If you're able to determine that the firmware is v1.1 or similar, then the next step is to simply update the firmware. That should solve this problem.

    Thanks,
    Paul
  • Hi Paul,
    Thanks for quick reply. We are back on this...
    - LCr bought from Farnell
    - I can see the TI sticker saying Seal DT: 01/05/15. I see also LOT: 010515E001
    - The power supply is a TTi PL303QMD-P so no problem in providing controlled voltage and current
    - USB cable is 2 m
    - The LCr does not connect to the PC, it appears/disappears from Network connections

    As for the voltage / current. I remember the other LCr was 4.85 V / 320 mA. In this last one, I read 5.20 V / 320-460 mA

    Thanks a lot, Pepe
  • Hi Paul,

    It was the power supply, my bad. Currently working with LEDS need more power.

    Sorry for wasting your time, Pepe
  • Pepe,

    What happens when you just power on the Lightcrafter without it being connected to anything?

    I see that your power supply is a benchtop model - please confirm that you don't have it current limited to less than 3A. The DM365 will pull quite a bit of current on startup which will be required for successful operation.

    I recommend as well that you find a shorter USB cable, something like 20cm. 2m is quite long and the USB signals on the LCr do better over a shorter cable.

    Paul
  • Hi Paul,

    So now it boots up, showing color bars.
    However it does not connect using the GUI. I downloaded software bundle DLPLCr_FW_SW_v3.0_WIN_12_05_2013
    After installation, I run the GUI from C:\Texas Instruments-DLP\DLPLCRSoftwareBundle-3.0\LightCrafterGUI-v5.0-Windows\LightCrafterGUI.exe
    I press Connect button but I don't see anything happening.

    Can you help me?
  • Alright, a little progress, great! A couple more questions.

    1. When you power on the lightcrafter with nothing plugged in does it complete the loading process? Do you see the splash screen and color bars?
    2. Did you change the length of your USB cable?
    3. Try powering on the LCr w/o being plugged in and have the GUI open. Once the LCr is fully powered on, connect it to the computer and click "connect" on the GUI.

    Another thing to check is to make sure that the switch by the SD card is pushed AWAY from the SD card slot.
  • Hi Paul,

    So I can now connect using the GUI as well.

    The problem now (also I saw it in the forum) is that my internet connection goes really slow when having a static IP.
    It will be great to solve it but I can live with waiting a minute before connecting through GUI.

    If you have a solution to this, great. Other wise I will verify answer
    Thanks a lot Paul,

    Pepe
  • Actually, using a static IP address AND having the gateaway set to the DLP IP address, solves the problem of Internet. HOWEVER, and this is new, gets my server software (Python, Matlab, OUtlook,...) to take ages to start.

    So Internet issue solved but server software NOT solved
  • Glad it's working now. Not sure what's causing the issues with the server software. Those issues go away when you unplug the LCr? What OS are you using?

    Paul
  • Yes, it goes away. The software stays in hold trying to start, and then, just after unplugging they finish starting.
    I am using Windows 10.

    May be this can be something to look in the future. Thanks for your help

    Best regards, pepe