Good day;
I'm experiencing some issues with the transfer of the jpg images from the CC640 camera to a 512MB industrial Flash card attached to the NL115, which is connected to a CR1000. I am using RS485 transfer protocol with a MD485 between the camera and the CR1000.
Everything was working fine for months and now the images are not being stored. If it check the IP address via internet explorer at the scheduled time of the photos being taken (every 15min), I can see the image trying to transfer (eg I see CRD/0055_00156551.JPG for example. CRD is the flash card, 0055 is the pakbus address of the camera 00156551 is the incremental image name). if I look 15min later the file has increased by 1 so I suspect the camera is working properly. The flash card is formatted to FAT32, and as mentioned, worked fine for 5 months. If I remove the FLash card I believe the images should then be stored on the CR1000's usr drive, but they do not. I've reformatted the flash card and saw no improvement.
there was been electrical storms in the area so lightning is a possibility. the camera is 100ft up a tower and not easily accessible. the rest of the gear is at the base of the tower, but is 4hrs away from my office (I can connect remotely via IP though).
Can anyone think ideas to assist in troubleshooting this? Has anyone ever had a MD485 fail before? Or how I could test that it is working properly? One option is to drive out to the site, take off the MD485 and connect it to another device and test it locally, but figured I'd see if someone else has ever had the same problems before.
thanks for your help!
SJP
This is one I happen to know a little about, but maybe not in all the details.
First thing to check is your logger's OS. Versions prior to 17 have a bug in the filemanager that can result in running out of filehandles, and the results look like what you're describing. The problem occurs if an active file transfer is interrupted for any reason, e.g., LoggerNet timing out. I could see this clearly in the logs, as the number of files queued on the logger's (USR in our case) drive increases by one on each download failure.
The filehandles can be cleaned up by formatting the drive. This kept us going (with OS16 loggers) until we could flash a new OS in there.
Regarding the MD485, we apparently did have a failure in one, or at least everything else seemed to troubleshoot ok. Our site with this problem is rather remote (1 hour helicopter ride on the Alaskan north slope), so more troubleshooting is unlikely for a while, but at least the camera should be storing images on its attached card. Cause of the presumed failure would be a wild guess, but electrical activity might be a likely candidate.
Good luck!
Ken
<quote>I've reformatted the flash card and saw no improvement.</quote>
That sounds to be at odds with what I was saying, not sure. We were dealing with the USR drive, and so our situation was different at least in that regard.
SJP,
A couple things come to mind that I would like to ask.
One- Do you have the Camera sending picture on an timed interval, or is the logger pulsing the camera for a picture?
Two- By Chance, did you happen to recompile/resend the program about the time that a picture was being down loaded?
Three- Rather than formatting the card have your tried recompiling/resending the program?
I was ran into a similar situation where there was a picture coming to the logger and I would send a program and the pictures would stop. Once I reset everything it would work again up until I sent the program during a picture download time.
This crash that occurs, has been fixed on the next OS release. I think that will be 18.
Regards
* Last updated by: sonoautomated on 11/7/2009 @ 8:19 PM *
Hei sjp,
I'v ever used the CC640 and MD485 in my systems but I used CFM100 as a data storage, as i know you must setting the CR1000 files manager, see below
=====
The Files Manager setting on the CR1000 facilitates the management of JPEG
files that are received from the camera. The Files Manager allows the user to
specify a name for the files and the number of files kept in a ring memory type
fashion.
The format of the Files Manager setting is as follows:
(AAAA,DDD:NAME.EXT,NNNN)
• AAAA – Is the PakBus address of the camera
• DDD – Is the destination drive on the CR1000
USR for the user drive
CRD for the compact flash memory card
• NAME – Is any name string that will be used to name the files
• EXT – The file extension of the incoming file must match. In the case of
the camera this must always be “JPG”.
• NNNN – The number of files kept in the ring memory. This number
should be low enough so that the memory required for the files is less than
what is available in the corresponding drive. However, for the internal
USR drive this would normally be between 3 and 10 images and for CRD
drive (memory card) this can be larger. When communications are used to
retrieve images, it is suggested to limit the number of files in the ring
memory to 200 in order to avoid long communication delays.
An example Files Manager setting is as follows:
(55,USR:SkySouth.JPG,3)
• Camera PakBus address is 55
• The files will be stored in the USR: director with a name
SkySouth####.JPG where #### is an incrementing number. Entering a
zero for this parameter will disable the automatic numbering and produce a
fixed file name.
• The 3 most recent files will be kept. A new incoming file will cause the
oldest to be deleted.
=============
in my opinion if you remofe the Flash card you must change the setting in CR1000 files manager, change the CRD into USR
hope this help, good luck
So I finally made it to the site to check out this issue. I have tried a spare MD485, a spare flash card, a spare NL115, and running this on a separate CR1000 with no improvement.
The camera is set on timed interval (30min) but I also have in my list of options is the external trigger. The real challenge is that the camera is 150ft up a tower so climbing isn't an option (at least by me!...but it may have to be by someone else....)
Troubleshooting once every 30min is a very slow way to get info (at least it's nice outside!). The MD485 LEDs lightly blink every 2sec, like they should when power is on to the MD485. But, if I send a 12V external signal to the camera, the B LED (that indicates RS485 traffic) about 10-15sec after sending the 12V signal, will flash solidly for a second, off for 5 sec, and repeat 8 times. If I monitor the CommActiveSDC7 port (correct port) I see no activity.
I suspect a wiring issue up at the camera. What I need to verify before I find a climber to go up is, is the camera trying to send a photo? Does anyone know what I would expect for voltage on a A and B RS485 lines? Or is there any other way to verify that the camera is actually trying to send an image?
It's too bad you can't use DevConfig via the RS485 to connect to the CC640.
thanks!