Camera Not Detected

Under some circumstances, a PGR camera may not be detected by the controlling host system. PGR technical support staff have reproduced this problem using a Dragonfly Express 1394b camera connected into a PC using the following configuration:

To reproduce this problem, simply disconnect one end of the fiber optic cable from one of the FireNEX800 repeaters while the system is powered and working. The "Laser" repeater status LED should turn off. Verify that the PGR camera is no longer detected by Windows Device Manager or by the FlyCap demo program included with the PGR FlyCapture SDK. Unfortunately, this problem cannot be resolved by simply reconnecting the fiber optic cable. Doing so should result in one or more of the repeater's three (3) status LEDs (usually "Active" and "Laser") going into a rapid blinking or flashing state. Detection problems occur in all cases where one or more of the status LEDs are flashing.

To resolve this problem, unplug everything and reconnect all the components in the order outlined in the "Using the FireNEX800" section of the FireNEX800 User's Manual. These instructions are basically as follows:

1. Connect the two FireNEX800 repeaters using the correct type of fiber optic cable (e.g. 62.5/125um MMF).
2. Plug each repeater into its individual power supply. Verify that the "Laser" LED is solid green - this is important for things to work.
3. Connect one of the repeaters to the IEEE-1394 PCI card using a 4.5m 1394b cable. If you have access to an IEEE-1394b bus analyzer such as FireSpy, verify that both repeaters are detected and confirm
   that the negotiated bus speed is S800
4. Connect the PGR camera (e.g. Dragonfly EXPRESS) into the other repeater. Verify that all three status LEDs are solid green, and the camera is detected by Windows Device Manager and FlyCap. To test the connection, execute FlyCap and attempt to grab images.

According to Newnex technical staff, the optical cable must be plugged in first because for the receiver and transmitter to be in the communication state, the IEEE-1394b physical layers (PHYs) for both units need to go through the initiation stages (toning, speed code detecting, sending/receiving ACKs, etc.).

Image Acquisition Fails (black images)

When trying to acquire images from a 1394a or 1394b camera using FlyCap, under some circumstances no images will be acquired and the FlyCap display will remain black. This is often a result of the problem discussed in Related Article 171 below, and can be resolved using the steps discussed in that article. If this does not resolve the issue, contact Technical Support.