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RE: Spyrus units going down -March 2002



Ken:
 
Attached is the email from Spyrus on the one Plumas unit returned for repair.   It implies that they are attempting to generate a fix for the lock up problem after a battery change.  But this is referring to a lockup that occurred even after leaving the batteries out for 10 minutes.  Barney and I are trying to get more info from the manufacturer on root cause of the failure.
 
Also attached is a PDF File that contains the observations while testing those Plumas Spyrus units that had worked after leaving the batteries out for 10 minutes.
 
Ian S. Piper
Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
972.542.6000
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bugtrack@gesn.com [mailto:owner-bugtrack@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Ken Clark
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 6:15 PM
To: bugtrack@gesn.com
Subject: RE: Spyrus units going down -March 2002

…or don’t contact Spyrus regarding the 10 minute timeout if you feel you don’t need to.   Whatever.

 

 

Here are the results of my tests:

 

50195:  turns on but not off is interesting

 

Unit made it all the way to my desk in the “permanently on” mode.  This unit does not respond to keypad events at all (no beeps).  5 minutes with battery out cures the problem.

 

50314:  squares mode of failure

 

Couldn’t get the cover off.  Stripped the screws trying.

 

50200:  won’t power on mode of failure.  please try to turn it on a few more times before sending in case its like 50204

 

Dead batteries.  Wouldn’t power on with original batteries even after 10 minutes.  New batteries powered on right away.

 

50158:  sounds like it works but was never loaded

 

Dead batteries.  Unit didn’t display “Card Manager 1.1.2” when powered on, just Insert Manager Card.  New batteries cured the problem.  Tried old batteries in another unit and got a very faint “PAR2 boot” on the LCD.  I guess they were right on the edge of being dead.

 

50204:  working sorta, but maybe I get to watch it fail again

 

Played with it until I got bored (10 minutes – good measurement of attention span) and it wouldn’t fail.

 

Conclusions:

 

Not many.  The units obviously have some sort of power after calc/off it pressed, and this power remains for minutes even after the batteries are removed.  That is a serious problem in of itself.  One of the underlying premises with the unit was that the worst that could happen is you have to power off/on the unit to solve a given problem.  This premise no longer holds true.

 

Ken

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-
bugtrack@gesn.com [mailto:owner-bugtrack@gesn.com] On Behalf Of Ian S. Piper
Sent:
Thursday, March 21, 2002 11:59 AM
To:
bugtrack@gesn.com
Subject: RE: Spyrus units going down -March 2002

 

I don't need to contact Spyrus on the "10 minute battery out" issue.  It's right in operator's guide.  Did you not read that PDF file I sent yesterday as an attachment to this message thread?

 

We'll have a chat with the Spyrus folk on that one unit that doesn't power up on either our application or theirs (calculator.)

 

BTW:  I'm still sending those five readers to you.  They're already boxed with customs forms filled out and waiting for pickup.  Enjoy.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ian S. Piper

Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

 

--- Begin Message ---
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Corry [mailto:cgott@spyrus.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 12:43 PM
To: 'Barney Lucas'
Subject: RE: Card Reader Failure Analysis

Barney
What has been determined is that the unit tends to lock up if it is in a certain state when the batteries are changed. The resolution for this is in the works as we speak. The first couple of units you returned to us we were able to get working. When the fix is done we will be sending it to you.
 
Thanks
Corry
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Barney Lucas [mailto:barney@gesn.com]
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 11:51 AM
To: cgott@spyrus.com
Subject: Card Reader Failure Analysis

Corry,
 
We have received replacements for the (15) card readers returned to you. Were your engineers able to determine the cause of failure of the first card reader that was returned? 
 
Barney
--- End Message ---

Attachment: Spyrus Testing Observations.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document