Phidgets Forums

Prefacing this with the fact that I am EXTREMELY non-technical, so any answer or solution involving technical expertise will get me in over my head very quickly.

I currently use a 0/0/4 phidget to control power to turn on and off to a hobby/club slot car track I have. It is connected via USB to my laptop, which runs a Race Management software. This software is set for heat lap duration which signals the phidget when to turn the relays on and off.

Everything works fine. Even I figured out how to get it going, which is saying something.

My problem is that I've purchased a couple of brand new phidgets identical to the 0/0/4 I have for the purpose of swapping out if there is a failure during a race. Race day might have 16 guys, and a failure of the race management system can create real issues.

The problem is that neither of my brand new, identical to the one that is installed and working, actually 'works.' I plug in the USB cable...the same used on the unit that works, plugged into the same USB port that sends the working signal. When I manually turn the power on/off through the software, the original works just fine. Neither of the other two work at all, even though the software sends a message that it has detected each of the new phidgets.

Any idea why identical, brand new phidgets won't work when swapped out for an identical working one?

Thanks
Todd
tlbrace2008@yahoo.com

My first thought would be that the software is coded such that it is expected a specific serial number for the interface kit. When it goes to open the device to start using it, the serial number it is expected isn't there and so it fails to open the device.

Without knowing how the software is written though I really couldn't say for sure.

burley wrote:My first thought would be that the software is coded such that it is expected a specific serial number for the interface kit. When it goes to open the device to start using it, the serial number it is expected isn't there and so it fails to open the device.

Without knowing how the software is written though I really couldn't say for sure.

Thanks, Brian.

That did the trick, thanks.