BATC Forum

Hi,

I have today installed the pi pico mod, it all seems fine apart from when going into rx it’s finds and decodes fine, if I then look at the beacon mer then go back to rx the screen reports, Waiting for Tuner to Respond and no signal appears no green led, the led on the pico flickers a small amount but only when decoding, any one else seen this?

Brian
G6HFS

Hi Brian

What green LED? I assume this is with opentuner? I don't know what green LED there is?

Mike

Hi Brian

Not sure about the LEDs, but I have just reproduced the problem. Something to do with VLC initialisation.

As a temporary workround, if you tap the top left of the screen after it goes blank (having shown a lock), it resets VLC and then shows a picture.

I'll look at a proper fix when I get a chance. However, it is a Portsdown problem exposed by PicoTuner, rather than a PicoTuner problem.

Dave, G8GKQ

Hi,

The green led on the pi pico, when led on all ok but it stops working when led off

Brian
G6HFS

I know that VLC is very fussy about signal quality. Stopping and starting the stream can cause such lockups.

The green LED lights when data is available for the host to read and turns off when the host reads the data. So it will come on steadily if the host software is not running and will flicker in normal operation. The brightness of flicker will change depending on the SR of the signal. The Beacon will be quite bright, a 250K TS will be dimmer, no signal will still flicker but extremely dimly. Some Picos also seem to have very dim LEDs so it may not always be visible on all boards.

If you want to add LEDS to show when a signal is being received connect as follows...

T on board to the Anode of an LED, Cathode of the LED via a series 1K resistor to G on the board. This will indicate TS1 Valid
R on board to the Anode of an LED, Cathode of the LED via a series 1K resistor to G on the board. This will indicate TS2 Valid

Colin G4EML

Just for information
I ordered twp picos from A...ss in China for 4euros each. The delivery time was 7 days.
I choose the model with USB C connector because it is more "modern", easy to connect and nearly a standard at home.

Just one question:
In the previous Pico software edition the Pico appeared in my PC as "Port COM".
In the last edition it appears as "USB bus controller".
Am I right ?

Have fun
73's
Alain F1CJN

The standard PIco appears as a COM port. When loaded with PicoTuner it does not, it appears as two USB Controller devices.

As I am not much familiar with the Pico, what drivers have to be loaded before loading the Pico Tuner software ( or after loading the soft ) ?
I am working on a W10 PC.
Thanks for any help
ON7TU - Lucien

Have you checked through info here? https://wiki.batc.org.uk/PicoTuner
Gareth

To use the PicoTuner with windows you currently need to load the WinUSB drivers using Zadig.

Tom has details here.
https://www.zr6tg.co.za/2024/02/11/pico ... ternative/

Hopefully this will be automated in the future.

Colin G4EML