Arduino IDE cannot find port and issues connecting FED3 to computer

[Nicholas Antony]

Hello, everyone!

We just got one of our pre-built FED3 units in the other day, and we have been having some issues getting the device to interface with our computers (both a Mac and a Windows machine). We plan on trying to test the device on some other Windows machines we have in the lab, but with our first two computers, we are running into two issues:

1. More often than not, when I plug in the device to my Windows machine, I get a message on the device saying "Check SD Card!" We are often able to get this to go away with some random unplugging/plugging back in of the USB cable after removing and re-inserting the SD card, however, getting this message to go away feels entirely random, and we have not found a consistent series of steps that work.

2. After we are able to get the first problem resolved (seemingly entirely by chance), we have had issues getting our computers to recognize the device itself. When I plug the device into my Windows machine, I hear the noise indicating that a USB device has been plugged in and detected (the red LED next to the micro-USB port turns on). However, without fail, a couple of seconds later, even though the device is still plugged in, my machine makes the noise that indicates that the device has been removed (and the red LED turns off).

I imagine that the second issue would explain our not being able to find the device listed under the "ports" dropdown menu inside of the Arduino IDE (if our computers are not able to detect the device in the first place). Following some advice from other threads on this forum, we made sure that the switch on the PCB was set to the correct position, and that we had the micro-USB cable plugged into the micro-USB port on the Adalogger (not the one on the PCB for charging). Even so, we cannot get our computers to recognize the device.

Has anyone else run into these problems, and if so, what has worked to fix them?

Thanks for your help!

[Lex Kravitz]

Hi!  I think we can track down what's going on!  Regarding your points:

1) When you say the Check SD Card message shows up when you plug it in, does this message also show up when you turn FED3 on without plugging in USB power?  I am really curious about why this message would appear so please let me know if you discover any more info on when it happens.

2) This sounds like normal behavior while the FED3 is plugged in and operating. The USB sounds you are hearing are the FED3 device waking up when you first turn it on, and then going to sleep to save battery power while FED3 waits for the mouse to interact with it.  If you poke a nosepoke after the USB disconnects you should hear the USB reconnect sound as it wakes up.  Can you confirm?

To "see" the FED3 with the Arduino IDE, the Adalogger board inside needs to be put into "bootloader" mode.  To activate this, "double-click" the little button on the Adalogger board.  The red LED should start "breathing".  See video of what the "breathing" LED looks like here.  If you put it in bootloader mode does it show up in the Arduino IDE as expected?  I also recorded a video showing how to set up your Arduino IDE to recognize the FED3 (I put it in bootloader at the 6-minute mark in this video).

I have a few other questions that will help us track this down:

3) I presume these boards came from OEPS?  Were these devices working correctly when you got them? Have you re-flashed them or do they have the code as they were shipped?

4) The FED3 is designed to be used on battery power and only connected to a PC when you need to put new code on it. Is your goal with connecting it to the computer to run it while connected to the PC?

Talk soon!  -Lex

[Nicholas Antony]

Hello! Thanks for all of the suggestions! I was able to flash code onto the device and get everything working! I did not have it in "bootloader" mode; after putting it into this mode, the device popped up under ports and the rest was very simple.

Regarding the SD card question, we do not have an external battery for the device at the moment (we might ultimately decide to run it off of micro-USB), but after I figured out how to  successfully flash code onto the device, I haven't run into the SD card issue again.

Also, to address the question about reconnection after triggering the nosepoke, I can confirm that I did hear the device reconnect. My (incorrect) intuition was that we needed the device to be constantly connected in order to flash new code, but it really just needed to be in bootloader mode.

From what I can tell so far, the device is fully functional! I'll let you know if I run into any further problems. Specifically, if the SD card issue occurs again, I'll try and better deduce the circumstances under which the error occurs. Thanks for all of your help in resolving these issues! I'm glad we got it all to work so quickly, and we really appreciate your fast response.

Best,

Nicholas

[Lex]

Awesome glad you got it going, let me know if you run into any other issues!

One thing you may run into: the motor cannot turn from USB power alone as most USB ports do not source enough current to move it.  So you will likely need a battery connected inside for the FED3 to dispense pellets.  You can leave the FED3 plugged in via USB all the time if you don't want to deal with changing/charging batteries but you still need a battery.  Good luck with your experiments!

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FEDforum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fedforum+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fedforum/0eb800a1-ebfb-4bc5-b6a1-b49ef3ff435dn%40googlegroups.com.