7 segment displays on bcs 460 issues

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Face Eater

I brew beer....
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For the life of me I can not figure these displays out to work properly. I have 4 7 segment displays wired up to my bcs 460 but have an issue. It seems that they stop updating to show the actual temp and freeze. They freeze after a few seconds of starting up my panel usually. I got these wired up to a 12v dc power supply. I have the negative from the power supply to the gnd on the bcs (which I read on multiple forums). They all light up and show temps but just freezes. I am running the latest version of the firmware for the bcs.

I know I had read somewhere the firmware of the bcs needs to be downgraded but I cant find that post anywhere anymore. Can anyone help with this issue? Is it a firmware issue? Any other things I should try to fix this?
 
For the life of me I can not figure these displays out to work properly. I have 4 7 segment displays wired up to my bcs 460 but have an issue. It seems that they stop updating to show the actual temp and freeze. They freeze after a few seconds of starting up my panel usually. I got these wired up to a 12v dc power supply. I have the negative from the power supply to the gnd on the bcs (which I read on multiple forums). They all light up and show temps but just freezes. I am running the latest version of the firmware for the bcs.

I know I had read somewhere the firmware of the bcs needs to be downgraded but I cant find that post anywhere anymore. Can anyone help with this issue? Is it a firmware issue? Any other things I should try to fix this?

Have you checked out the BCS forum? http://forum.embeddedcc.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2468&hilit=7+digit
 
So it seems to work fine when only 2 are connected. I alternated the 2 that I had connected and still seem to work and refresh. Once I get to 3 it works for a little while and then freezes again and same with 4. The power supply I have is 12v 1.2 amp which I thought was enough. They all light up and start working but then freeze. Can it need more power? Is it bcs related? Anyone?
 
I ran into a similar issue during a brewday while testing the previous beta version of 4.0. The displays just stopped updating for a while, but started to update again on their own. I posted this on the BCS forum, but didn't get a great response. I haven't been able to reproduce it since. I know my issue is not power related as I am using a 10a 12V supply and only have the 4 displays plus a small pump on it.

I am fairly confident this is a BCS bug that was introduced in the 4.0 firmware. I say that because I never had any issues running on the previous 3.x.x versions of FW for over a year.
 
I ran into a similar issue during a brewday while testing the previous beta version of 4.0. The displays just stopped updating for a while, but started to update again on their own. I posted this on the BCS forum, but didn't get a great response. I haven't been able to reproduce it since. I know my issue is not power related as I am using a 10a 12V supply and only have the 4 displays plus a small pump on it.

I am fairly confident this is a BCS bug that was introduced in the 4.0 firmware. I say that because I never had any issues running on the previous 3.x.x versions of FW for over a year.

Where can i get the 4.0 firmware to try? I am not having luck with 3.6 or 3.7.1.
 

Thanks I will try that. I spent hours last night searching around ecc and hbt. Finally found some issues that sounded like mine a bit. New to the bcs and so far very frustrating. 3rd bcs and one thing after another that seems to go wrong. First the bcs got corrupt and wouldn't do anything. Then it fried out but wasn't wired wrong and now just the pid displays acting up. Seems like I'm finally getting it o where it needs to be.
 
Same issues with the pid displays freezing about 5-10 seconds after startup with other firmware versions. Even tried my 462 and same thing. Wonder what else could be the issue. Bad displays or cables? Works fine with only 2 displays hooked up but with 3 or 4 they freeze.
 
Same issues with the pid displays freezing about 5-10 seconds after startup with other firmware versions. Even tried my 462 and same thing. Wonder what else could be the issue. Bad displays or cables? Works fine with only 2 displays hooked up but with 3 or 4 they freeze.

Might be worth paying an electrician to put a second pair of eyes on the wiring. If you going thru that many BCS's it sounds like there may be a wiring problem (or grounding problem). I've had mine since 2009 with little to no problems.
 
Or I got the faulty units. I'll have someone check my wiring, even though I'm not new to wiring and understanding electricity. I'm no electrician but have done plenty of wiring with ac and dc in my life. I'm glad a bunch of people do not have issues with their equipment. And according to many forums including ecc and here, it seems like many people have issues with these displays and many people who understand electricity and wiring so I am not alone.
 
Do you have a multimeter? I would measure the 12V rail as you turn on the panel to see if the voltage droops at all. Ideally you would use a scope as that will allow you to zoom in on the time axis in case the droop is a very short duration, but most people don't have access to them. Also measure at the display itself, not at the power supply outputs.

You mentioned that it will work with 2 but not all 4 displays connected. Have you tried different combinations of 2 at a time? It could be that you have 1 bad display that is hosing the I2C bus. I2C can be finicky in the sense that one misbehaving slave can kill the entire bus.
 
Do you have a multimeter? I would measure the 12V rail as you turn on the panel to see if the voltage droops at all. Ideally you would use a scope as that will allow you to zoom in on the time axis in case the droop is a very short duration, but most people don't have access to them. Also measure at the display itself, not at the power supply outputs.

You mentioned that it will work with 2 but not all 4 displays connected. Have you tried different combinations of 2 at a time? It could be that you have 1 bad display that is hosing the I2C bus. I2C can be finicky in the sense that one misbehaving slave can kill the entire bus.

I'll try my multimeter on all the 12v stuff tonight including at the displays. The one display may be broke and i have tried a few combinations in pairs of 2 mostly with success. The one display sometimes takes a bit longer to show a temp after initial boot which they all do together and sometimes i need to power down and power on for the 1 to work. I emailed brewers hardware and may get a few more to test to see whats going on.
Between displays they are just using the i2c jumper cables so unless those cables are shot I'm not sure how it would be a wiring problem to the initial display since i can get 2 working fine. It may be a power problem or faulty display so i will definitely check that tonight. I wonder if i ran separate 12v+ and 12v- to each one directly off the power supply would help and use the jumpers just for the 2 blue wires to daisy chain them together. Thank you.
 
I wonder if i ran separate 12v+ and 12v- to each one directly off the power supply would help and use the jumpers just for the 2 blue wires to daisy chain them together. Thank you.

You really shouldn't need to do that. I have all 4 of mine Daisy chained with the 6" jumper cables. The cable from the power supply to the first display is close to 2 feet long in my panel. These shouldn't be drawing enough current to create a large enough voltage drop to justify using individual power feeds.
 
Just throwing a spitball out there:

Most daisy chain communation schemes need to be terminated in one fashion or another. Does that apply in this case?
 
Well i came home today and the main i2c cable was damaged and now the displays do not get anything from the bcs. I will buy a new cable and report back soon. Hope to get this working sooner than later. And i dont know about it being terminated. Hopefully someone with some experience can chime in on that.
 
Shouldn't need to be terminated. I2C is open drain so the pull-up resistors help prevent reflections. Most I2C devices use over sampling so they are able to withstand a minor glitch from reflections or slow rise times from weak pull ups and excessive capacitance. I've seen some of our earlier designs at work where we had options on the PCB to add parallel termination, but we never needed to use it. It was there as a safety net.
 
Hi Face Eater,

Did you ever get this issue resolved?

I am having a similar issue with BCS 462 firmware 4.0 Beta 3 where I am simply not getting any updates out of the BCS to the PID display modules. I have tried all sorts of combinations with different length cables, isolating to a single temp probe and display module, separating 12v and 240v grounds etc.

I am at the point where I need to put some sort of test equipment on the SDA/SCL output to measure the signal at output and then again at the display module. If by chance you have resolved your issue I would be interested to know if you found the root cause?

Cheers

Duk
 
Hi Face Eater,

Did you ever get this issue resolved?

I am having a similar issue with BCS 462 firmware 4.0 Beta 3 where I am simply not getting any updates out of the BCS to the PID display modules. I have tried all sorts of combinations with different length cables, isolating to a single temp probe and display module, separating 12v and 240v grounds etc.

I am at the point where I need to put some sort of test equipment on the SDA/SCL output to measure the signal at output and then again at the display module. If by chance you have resolved your issue I would be interested to know if you found the root cause?

Cheers

Duk

I actually just stopped trying with my current setup. I got them up for sale but not really in a rush to sell them. I pre-ordered a brewtroller which I may try to use them with that if no one wants them. They boot up just fine start to get readings from the bcs and freeze when i have 3 or 4 hooked up. When i have just 2 hooked up they are just fine and continue to update with current temperature readings. Cable length did not seem to make a bit of difference for me and I believe it may just be a bcs related issue not the displays but many people hook them up and have no issues with them.

I just need to finish my panel and system so i can get brewing again and do not want to mess around with the displays any more with this system. I wish you the best of luck with your displays. The only thing i could think of may be at the exp0 and exp1 output of the bcs but i did not try any test equipment on that before i took it apart. It works fine with just 1 or 2 so i am guessing the signal out of the expansion port may not be enough for all 4 but i am just guessing. Good luck!
 
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