Troubleshooting

This page shows how to troubleshoot the USB-DUX devices. It uses small test programs which you can either download here or you can start them straightaway from the USB-DUX memory stick. They are pre-compiled in the folder /usr/share/example-content.

USB-DUX-D

  1. Compile the programs (skip if you have a USB-DUX memory stick):
    1. Download usbdux_test.tar.gz
    2. Unpack it with tar xzvf usbdux_test.tar.gz
    3. Change into the subdirectory usbdux_test and then compile the programs with make
  2. Connect a signal generator to channel 0 (and 8) running at about 10Hz.
  3. Run sh test_inputs.sh and you should see the plot of channel 0 and 7.
  4. Run sh test_outputs.sh which generates out on both the digital and analogue pins.

USB-DUX-sigma

  1. Compile the programs (skip if you have a USB-DUX memory stick):
    1. Download usbduxsigma_test.tar.gz
    2. Unpack it with tar xzvf usbduxsigma_test.tar.gz
    3. Change into the subdirectory usbduxsigma_test and then compile the programs with make
  2. Connect a signal generator to channel 0 (15 and/or more) running at about 10Hz.
  3. Run sh test_inputs.sh and you should see the plots of channels 0,1,2 13,14,15.
  4. Run sh test_outputs.sh which generates out on both the digital and analogue pins.

USB-DUX-fast

  1. Compile the programs (skip if you have a USB-DUX memory stick):
    1. Download usbduxfast_test.tar.gz
    2. Unpack it with tar xzvf usbduxfast_test.tar.gz
    3. Change into the subdirectory usbduxfast_test and then compile the programs with make
  2. Connect a signal generator to channel 0 running at about 100Hz and ground the other channels.
  3. Run sh test.sh and you should see the plots of channels 0 and 1.

Firmware problems

Type "dmesg". If you see the lines:
comedi_: usbdux0 has been successfully initialized.
usbcore: registered new driver usbdux
but you don't see the lines:
comedi0: usbdux: usb-device 0 is attached to comedi.
comedi0: successfully attached to usbdux.
you probably have a problem with the firmware. UBUNTU and debian come with firmware packages which need to be installed. Check if these files exist in your /lib/firmware directory: "usbdux_firmware.bin", "usbduxfast_firmware.bin" or "usbduxsigma_firmware.bin". You can find them on your system with the "locate" command. Different distributions might store them in a different location.

If you are compiling from source, you will find the firmware files in comedilib. Make sure that the firmware is installed in "/lib/firmware" and not in "/usr/local/lib/firmware". Check out the command line options with "./configure --help".