8400/7500 New Firmware!!!
TurnipTruck
Posts: 1,485
in AMX Hardware
Anyone tried it out yet? I'm snowed in with no panels to test on.
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Just put it on 2x 8400 and one 8400i.
Panels took a bit to boot up but the logo is much nicer to look at
I'm sure there's other stuff in the firmware that will improve wirless reliability above what we can now do with these advance wi-fi settings. I don't have time to play with any of this stuff now so hopefully time will prove these improvements to be beneficial.
Other than that the TP still works but I only have a small test program running for the slim server and nothing else on this TP & master. I guess I could load it on my office 8400 & master which has a ton of crap running but I have no time for that either.
1) Even tough my panel has a G wireless card, the Enterprise mode is grayed out. Simple mode only allows WEP and channels 1,6,11. I need to use WAP. If you have a high end Cisco routers that uses other channels, 3,4,5, 7,8,9,10, you will be out of luck.
2) Roaming and Site Survey is also grayed out.
3) I called tech support and it looks like I will need to send the panel in. It still works and communicates with the Master, but all the advanced wireless settings are disabled. This should not happen with G wireless panels only with the older B only panels.
At last, I downgraded the MVP8400 back to firmware v2_85_14 and all the advanced features work again including the WAP-PSK. Therefore, the new firmware v2_86_50 may have some issues to be corrected or it doesn't recognize my wireless G correctly, even tough all the prior firmwares do.
Ricardo
From my inferring I don't think you are limited to 1,6,11 (though from what I've heard you should limit to 1,6,11). If you touch the "i" next to Channel Selection it explains:
It looks like if your WAP is on channel 13, for example, that as long as you don't exclude "Ch. 11" it would still pick it up.
Thanks for replying to my post. The problem is that the i (Info), Roaming, Site Survey and Enterprise buttons are grayed out and don't work under the new firmware. Now, I downgraded the panel back to the previous firmware and everything works fine again. WAP, Roaming, Site Survey, etc. I talked to AMX tech and they want the panel back so they can dig deeper into the problem. Since the panel is still under warranty, I decided to send it back to them. The new firmware may work for some panels and may not work for others like mine, I am not sure why, but one thing I know, everything works fine with the firmware previous (v2_85_14) to the latest, so I am thinking that the new firmware(v2_86_50) may still need a tweak.
Ricardo
I was so hoping it was a firmware issue but I guess this panel might need to take a road trip.
Or the dock. I've had those electromagnets die on me before. Not often, but it has happened. I also had one case where the contact section of the panel was ever so slightly crooked in the panel, preventing consistent connections.
I have tested these panels extensively with wireless G cards with no problems. If I put a B card into my unit it correctly grays out the buttons. Put the G card back in and they become available again. It will be interesting to see what the problem is with that card when it comes back in. As a note, the site survey tool requires the G card, as does roaming. Also, with with a B card the panel will scan all channels when looking for a WAP. So there is always a way to get to a WAP on a channel that is not 1, 6, or 11. This same behavior applies with a G card with roaming disabled.
I just encountered this problem myself. Is the table dock older? There was a manufacturing difficulty that resulted in the docks or touch panel connectors being slightly off spec (maybe it was both). In the newer panels, this difficulty has been addressed (read as: they are making them properly now???) and now if you try to dock a new panel in an old dock, or maybe its the other way around, weird things happen.
The problem manifested itself as the touch panels instantly dropping their wireless connection when docked at the client's house (our showroom panel was on loan while the dropped panel was sent back). After we got the dropped panel back, we sent our office panel in for service (didn't know the cause yet). They replaced the connector to "fix" the panel....then we got it back and docked it in the wall dock in our showroom. This is where it is similar to your situation, as the panel would no longer charge in the dock. I don't recall if it would say docked or not, but it definitely did not charge. I think pushing on the top center of the panel lightly would align the pins and it would show as docked/charging, so you could try that to verify. We sent both the touch panel and the dock in, and they came back all fixed and functional.
Hope this helps,
Jeff
Unfonunately my old 8400 works perfectly with both of my docks (one of each) and the much newer 8400i is the one causing me grief.
Spire_Jeff wrote:
After visually comparing the working 8400 to the disfunctional 8400i I noticed a slight alignment difference. I ripped it apart but that connecter is fitted securely to the PCB so I lifted up the PCB, stuck a couple of folded paper shims under the PCB on top of its mounting posts on either side of the connector, re-assembled and she's a now workin a great!
Isn't frustrating that this mod has to be done to a multiple thousand dollar panel?
I guess I could have called TS but that would have cost me $1,200.00 dollars to find out what I found out for free here on the forum and with the $0.02 fix I saved on shipping and the repair fee (warranty?) to fix what should never have been an issue.
True, but it's rare. I've sold scores of 8400's, and only came across it once, and AMX shipped me a new one immediately. I think the bigger problem is the tech support tiers that put the onus on smaller dealers to cough up for support thy really shouldn't have to pay for.
--John
This will be a shot in their foot. Not sure how yet, but it will.
TurnipTruck wrote: I'm not really sure what to make of these new requirements and hoops they're putting dealers through but I can only assume as their residential relevance wanes and the hoops get higher dealers will simple tire and go for a simpler more profitable alternative. I know if I wasn't addicted to this stuff I would be gone.
Maybe this is just a temp strategy to weed out dealers who aren't committed but they've got to be pushing folks away that are but tired of the BS and the headaches. I don't see alot of the big expensive ventures by AMX that were geared towards the resi market panning out, namely VA and those dealers brought in to take advantage of VA seem to be the ones most at risk with the BullsEye mandates. With new products form other manufacturers, mobile devices and the direction the resi market seems to be heading maybe they're completely re-thinking the resi sector and its future and ultimately its place in AMX down the road.
Maybe like what happened to TPC we'll never know until someone wants us to know.
Ricardo
I think a warning would be prudent for firmware updates that are almost assured to break some functionality of your panels.
Ricardo
The client has upgraded their network to a Cisco managed Wireless Solution using a Cisco Wireless LAN controller, LWAPP access points and we have configured the MVP (2.86.50) to use WPA Enterprise, LEAP. I note that the MVP NetStumbler instance determined PEAP for this network, and whilst we can connect to it using PEAP, by choice we will use LEAP.
There is an AP in the room and the signal levels for the MVP in dB (nice) are fine.
After a little bit of fiddling we got the authentication detail sorted and the panel connected, but it won't stay connected for long. Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes a few hours. There are truckloads of fragments and retries also.
It sometimes leaves the 'green ball' green on the MVP, but there is no connection to the master. The NIC in the MVP is pingable at this time.
Open the TOOLS>>CONNECTION UTILITY box and the panel goes offline.
The client has iphone users, and laptops in all sorts of difficult places and they still have good connectivity - even if a bit slow.
We have reinstated the WEP64 WAP to the system and reconfigured to simple mode on the MVP, but we we seem to go offline now about once a day. Today was for nearly 4 hours.
Of interest, if roaming is selected, we cannot get a connection over WEP64. Switch roaming off and we get an immediate connection.
I have older f/w running on the master - I will upgrade this to see if this helps.
The broken levels for battery and wireless signal are a pain too - a warning would have been nice!
If anyone has any thoughts on the new f/w and using Enterprise as above, I would really appreciate it!
As cool as the new firmware sounds - I'm waiting until TPD4 is updated and we get more positive reviews. I may play with it at the office - but won't be deploying it on a jobsite just yet.
It cracks me up how every upcoming trade show elicits the same hopeful enthusiasm. I am the same way, but starting to get a bit jaded after the lack of "wow" the last few years.
Fingers crossed here, too.
My Setup Pages in TPD4 didn't have the separate charge/discharge levels that I could copy/paste to my file. I was running TPD4 2.11.0 Build 619 Border Version 8. I had recently (~1 month?) loaded the latest "support" files, hence "Border Version 8".
I went ahead and downloaded TPDesign4 G4 Support Files (v. 2.11.20), installed, and now I have the new firmware pages in TPD4. Help->About still reports 2.11.0 Build 619 Border Version 8
How do I know which version of support files TPD4 is running? I thought it was by the Border Version number, but obviously this isn't the case.
It is too bad in the "broken" situation the batter indicator would show while the panel is charging, but not show while the panel is running on battery power alone. It would have been slightly less painful the other way around.
If you copy and paste a second battery indicator over each exsiting battery indicator and then change it's properties, you can fix it.
Battery 1 therfore needs two indicators to handle the charge/discharge issue - address 0,242 and 0,234. Battery 2 needs 0,244 and 0,235.
Fixed my panel like this.
If you have not fixed this by now: the change is that the range low/high was 0/100 with the old firmware and is now 1/6.
I'm not sure, but It seems that these levels are only updated when entering the setup page. anyone got an idea how to work around this problem???