Your working with your pumps and everything seems fine. Suddenly or the next day you suddenly lost pump connections, What should you try? What’s likely to be the problem?
Check the Cabling – Power and Data
PC to first pump cable
The first thing to do is to carefully check the wiring. It’s amazing how many of our communication problems in the end turn out to be a wire or plug related issue and not a pump or SyringePumpPro issue. Look for physical damage to the cables and to the connector/cables. Unplug and replug each pump. On the pump data cable – Is that little plastic locking clip damaged or missing? That means your connection will be insecure and prone to dropouts.
USB Converter mini
If the cabling is connected correctly, and the USB-RS232 device is working (they fail). Be sure to check that the USB-RS232 device driver is installed. Unplug and re-plug – does Windows see the device get plugged in?
NOW – run through my connection checklist.
Restart SyringePumpPro
phocascreenshot
Close SyringePumpPro and then restart it again, open the serial port/network – select Discover all pumps from the menu. It should find the pump –
Alternatively, if you know the pump number you can query it or send commands to it using its address in the command window. For a pump at address 5 the command you would try is 5VER then click send.
Use the Diagnostic Menu Items
SyringePumpPro has some communications diagnostics menu items – Cable Test and Comms Test. The cable test button will make all connected pumps beep every few seconds until you turn it off. This is very handy starting at the computer end of the network and checking where a break is.
Getting Desperate
If you become desperate enough you can reset the pumps and start setting everything up again. But I would recommend against it. Something has changed and you need to find it.
Instead I suggest that you run through our Connection Check List and Connection Troubleshooting.
Most importantly Contact me and I will help you sort it out.