Author Topic: Vinculum VDrive 2 startup  (Read 10946 times)

pelican2

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Vinculum VDrive 2 startup
« on: May 19, 2013, 12:16:01 am »
I'm a total novice with Vinculum VDrives. I just got a VDrive 2 and can't get it to boot up. Otherwise I'm quite experienced with PIC chips. Drive powers up OK, strap is set for UART operation, indicator LED immediately flashes red-green-red-green-red-green, about once every 1.5 seconds... never stops. Scope shows zero activity on the UART TX line, no sign-on message, and no response to <cr> sent to the VDrive. I tried downloading the compiled VDAP software from FTDI website ( VDAPFUL-V3.69.ftd ) onto a flash drive, renaming it ( per instructions )  to FTRFB.FTD, and inserting it into the VDrive... nothing changes. Cold reboot with the flash drive installed also = no change, same LED pattern.

Obviously I'm doing something very dumb and very simple but I've run out of ideas. Any suggestions ?   

pelican2

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Re: Vinculum VDrive 2 startup
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2013, 12:41:15 pm »
Apologies, the problem was the CTS input line for the VDrive 2... I jumpered it to the RTS output and it booted up OK, although I screwed up the module ( before discovering that ) by installing a wrong version of firmware in it... a version for VDrive 1... can't find a similar file for VDrive 2 on the FTDI website so I might just trash it and get another... but the problem was the RTS input.

Even with the wrong firmware installed, it will boot up, detect insertion / removal of the flash drive, etc. and execute SOME commands... but after the first command, all following commands generate a syntax error.

Jan Axelson

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Re: Vinculum VDrive 2 startup
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2013, 10:18:31 pm »
I'm glad you got it working, at least partially. In the past, I've found FTDI's email tech support helpful.