Great to hear you have experience with tablets...and I appreciate the
mentoring very much!!
Franc Zabkar wrote:
This is the user manual:
http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/files/Microgrid3.pdf
Yep, had it.
Make sure you have matched the communications parameters (baud rate,
parity, etc) at both ends of your cable.
Here are some recommended settings when used with Vtablet:
http://www.vtablet.com/download/Digitize.txt
Vtablet settings at both ends.
To narrow down your problem, you could connect your tablet to a PC
with a real serial port and try this suite of test programs:
http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/files/sgdosdrv.exe
It includes an MGIII test.
This sounds like a great idea...will see I can find an old PC to test.
Alternatively you could try a DOS terminal emulation program such as
Telix or Xtalk which can display incoming data in hex mode. You could
also set the tablet switches for ASCII output mode.
This is beyond my PC skills at present;-)
The user manual says that anything less than 3 tones means your tablet
has a problem. On the plus side, the fact that it produces any tone at
all suggests that the CPU and ROM are probably OK.
If the PCB has socketed ICs, then you could remove them one at a time
to see if the error tones change. For example, if removing a RAM chip
changes your error report from 2 tones to 1 tone, then you can be
reasonably confident that your RAM is OK.
Looks like thru-hole soldering to me.
The unit has a removable 8" x 13" controller board and I was wondering if
anyone out there could direct me to an circuit troubleshooter who could look
it over and hopefully repair???
Can you upload a photo to your web space? It may jog my memory.
See
http://www.powerseed.com/microgrid/Photos.html for pix you requested.
Other points:
**The left LED (yellow) on the puck is supposed to be on when the 16-button
cursor is in use, and off when the stylus is being used. It is alway off in
all my tests. The middle (green) LED is supposed to come on when the puck has
proximity (within the table's electromag field)--it always glows dimly when
the table is powered up. The third LED glows dimly all the time also...it's
for programmable alerts.
**The tablet came sans power supply. Based on the specs I picked up a 12volt,
1 amp supply. Manual says mfr's p.s. must be used or wtty is void. Is this a
possible issue?
**I note there are what appear to be contact tabs (labeled +12v AC, -12v,
+12v, +5v, DIG GND, DIG GND) at the bottom right (plan view). Are these for
test fixture powering?
**Misc.--Unknown variable...There are also two blue, 2-receptacle "pin
jumpers" (labeled W3 and W5) seen at the bottom center of the board (plan
view). Each jumper has two possible positions (left or right) among 3 pins.
You could try TabletWorks as an alternative to Vtablet:
http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/supportsummasoftware.htm
I did this a while ago with no response. Current s/w (Cartalinx, Clark Labs)
programmed for Vtablet.
Thanks Franc!
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