Menu buttons

[Particle]

I bought a Kid two weeks ago and turned it on for the first time today.  The first thing I noticed was that the menu buttons don't appear to work very well.  Pressing a button one time seems to yield a random chance of no button press being detected at all, a normal button press being detected, or multiple button presses being detected.  I was wondering if this is a perhaps just an issue with my unit or if it's something exhibited by all Kid controllers.

Scrolling through the battery type menu on the initial boot, I had to spam the arrow buttons to get it to scroll and eventually ended on "Custom" at which point the controller would no longer accept any amount of up or down button presses.  Left and right still worked, though pressing right made the controller rush through the next two menus without me even getting to see the one in between.  Frustrated, I turned off power to the controller to reset it and started over.  The up and down arrows worked again, but the spotty behavior of the menu buttons persisted.  I just had to be very careful.  This seems like the sort of thing that could be fixed with firmware.  We need some software debouncing rolled into the button press handler.

[ClassicCrazy]

Have you updated the firmware yet ? What version is it ? There have been a number of firmware updates - recent ones available on Midnite webpage.

[Particle]

I tried to start the firmware update process, but it doesn't seem to work.  The controller never presents as a mass storage device to a computer.  That being said, restarting the controller suggests I have 1733 instead of the 1722 firmware available online.  I appear to be on a beta between the last stable and current beta release?

[TomW]

I tried to start the firmware update process, but it doesn't seem to work.  The controller never presents as a mass storage device to a computer.  That being said, restarting the controller suggests I have 1733 instead of the 1722 firmware available online.  I appear to be on a beta between the last stable and current beta release?

Particle;

What operating system on your computer?

We need that info to even try to help.

I did not realize there were any issues with the drag and drop upgrades on the Kids?

Tom

[TomW]

Oh, duh. Sorry. There is an intermediate update needed before you can drag and drop updates.  I did it so long ago I forget (anything before lunch is long ago)

I will see if I can find that info. Don't get discouraged.

Tom

[TomW]

Best info I could find:

http://midniteforum.com/index.php?topic=1655.0

Seems to only apply to the Beta Kids so not sure it counts?

Tom

[Westbranch]

Tom, for the BETAs units ONLY, a new BOOTLOADER file is needed.

Other than that AFAIK it's Drag and Drop

[Halfcrazy]

Yeah on My windows 7 laptop it never showed up as a pop up I had to go into "My Computer" and it was there as a drive.

[chris]

Yeah on My windows 7 laptop it never showed up as a pop up I had to go into "My Computer" and it was there as a drive.

This is the same with mine, but once I figured that out....updates have been a snap.

[Particle]

I believe that the unit I have is a production version as I bought it from Northern Arizona Wind & Sun two weeks ago.  It appears to have Bootloader 2.2 on it and firmware revision 1733.  The computer I tried to do the update with is a Windows 8.1 (64-bit) machine.

I plugged the controller into the computer using a mini USB cable and started the firmware update process on the controller after that.  I also tried starting the firmware update process on the controller and plugging in the cable only after that point.  Neither time did a mass storage device appear to be detected by the computer, neither in My Computer nor checking with disk management.  I checked with disk management in case the drive was detected but had no drive letter assigned as does occasionally happen with card readers and phones.  No luck there--it just isn't present.

I'll try with a different computer tomorrow and see what happens, but if anyone has any ideas in the mean time I would certainly be appreciative.

[atop8918]

There was a batch of USB cables shipped with the Classic were turning up to be bad.

Have you tried with another USB cable just to be sure? You might also try a different USB port on the PC if you haven't already. My Windows 7 machine only recognizes certain USB devices plugged into very particular ports for some reason. Thanks, Microsoft.

[Westbranch]

My Windows 7 machine only recognizes certain USB devices plugged into very particular ports for some reason.

I can confirm that peculiarity on a Wdoze7 machine too   what a pain!

[mike90045]

There was a batch of USB cables shipped with the Classic were turning up to be bad.

Oh man. Any idea what ser #'s those are ?   I don't have any of the nano size cables (90 minutes from a city with a store likely to have one.) 


Classic 200,  Win 8.1   Sleeps at 30C @ midnight - sucking power from my batteries.  USB=No talkie.

[atop8918]

No, I'm afraid I don't have that info -- only some of the cables were bad so it wasn't a lot problem -- probably a bunch that were at a corner of the shipping pallet or something. If you have a small digital camera or something it will most likely have that mini-USB connection on it if you need to test it out.
Sometimes it also takes a while for windows to load the driver (minutes). You may also have to boot windows in safe-mode or open mode in order to install the driver from the installer  since it isn't signed. At least that's what one had to do sometimes with Windows 7, I dunno about 8?

[Westbranch]

Mike the miini USB fits my cell phones.  If it works with them should be ok for the Classic.
hth