FX7500 Users: Problem with all FX7500 readers. Update available now that will fix it! If you have a FX7500 please read this before your next race...

[Brian Agee]

A few months ago (not long after the FX7500 was released) I had a customer (David) test the system out as soon as he got it and he told me that in his initial test he was getting around 70% read rates in his backyard tests. I asked him to send me a video of his test so that I can see his setup and how the tags are being worn. In the video it was clear that everything was setup correctly and the reads were very sporadic when he would run by. Obviously this is not normal. So when I saw his video, a problem with the reader was the last thing on my mind. My assumption is that he somehow got a bad batch of cables. After sending him new cables and finding that the problem persisted we sent him a new batch of antennas, but again the problem persisted.

When I received some FX7500's shortly after they were released I did some tests with them and everything appeared to work exactly like the FX7400, however in all of my tests I probably only hooked up a single antenna. As it turns out, this problem only presents itself when 3 or 4 antennas are connected to the reader. 

David then sent me another video where a tag was placed directly on an antenna and he could see that the "activity" light on the reader would blink on an off - like the reader was cycling between Reading and Not Reading. He also had his sound system close and over the sound system we could easily hear the hum of the reader cycling on and off. So at this point I now assumed that he just got a bad reader. David needed to time a race in the coming weeks so I sent him one of my FX7500s to get him through the race, however when it arrived he tested it and found that it had the same behavior. When he told me the problem was happening with my reader to I started to wonder if he lives in some kind of Bermuda triangle because I know I tested my reader (and I provided a video to him I believe as evidence) and the reader had a solid read a few days before at my house. However in my test I probably only hooked up a single antenna. At this point I still didn't expect a problem across all FX7500s or that the problem only presented itself with more than two antennas attached.

I contacted Zebra and they created a trouble ticket so that David can send his reader in. They tested it and sent it back to David with a note saying (basically) that there was nothing wrong with the reader. I have to assume they tested it with a single antenna like I did. David timed his race with just two antennas (which did very well) and then shipped both of the readers to me so that I can see what was wrong with them. I then started doing tests with all of my FX7500's and I finally found that the problem exists with all of them, and only when three or four antennas are attached to the reader. I then started to wonder if David (and I) simply got a bad batch of readers because I haven't heard of anyone else report poor read rates and I couldn't believe I haven't experienced any problems with them - but most of the time I use my FX9500 or FX7400 for the finish line, and the FX7500 for the split stations - which are rarely used of course.

After a few months of trying to explain the problem to Zebra, and finally providing clear video evidence (see here) of the problem, they started working closely with me over the past 10 days to find a solution. I'm happy to say that an update is available now that will fix the issue (see video). I have updated the version number to "4.8" so that if anyone reports poor read rates with the FX7500 I can immediately tell if they have the newest update or not.

[mstompro]

As an exclusive FX7500 user, I'm pretty excited about this news.  I always seem to have a few issues at each race with missed tag(s) for no apparent reason at all.  Maybe this will get me to 100% all the time!

[tiberiu.gindu]

Would this issue affect only FX7500?

I've noticed once (September 2015) something quite similar with an FX7400. No extra-debugging was done, so it could have been something related to cables / antennas, too.

[Richard Williamson]

We've corresponded several times over poor read rates with my 7500 so this is hopefully good news as I always use 4 antenna.

[Brian Agee]

When I did the same test with the FX7400 that you see in the video links above I did not see the issue. Of course you can try it yourself with your FX7400 and I'm confident you'll see steady reads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxIfaj4OtHc

[Ho]

Hello Brian,

It means that we have to upgrade the firmware of the fx7500 if we wanna handle the "on and off" problem?

Or just upgrade to ART 4.8 is the solution?

Thanks.

Ho

[Brian Agee]

Motorola (now Zebra) provided me with a few FX7500 specific commands that I send to the reader each time the software opens a connection to the reader. These commands will fix the issue the FX7500 will provide steady reads just like the FX7400 and FX9500. So there is nothing you have to do to the reader itself, just make sure you're running version 4.8 of the software.

Since these are specific to the FX7500, I do not send these commands if you're connecting to a FX7500 or FX9500 reader. These models work perfectly already, so I didn't want to take a chance of these commands changing the performance of those readers. These commands are not documented in the programmers interface guide, and since it took many months for Motorola to even see the problem and acknowledge something wasn't working right, I can't help but think that any other timing system that uses the FX7500 would still be suffering from the intermittent reads.

With version 4.8 the FX7500 now works just as well as the FX7400 (or other 4-port readers on the market). So if you have that version install then you're good to go.