AMBEserver: Couldn't find start byte in serial data

[lizardkings]

I am using DVMEGA AMBE with the shield from DVMEGA. 230400 baud.

Getting this error:
root@raspberrypi:/AMBE/AMBEServer# ./AMBEserver -i /dev/ttyUSB1 -x
AMBEserver: Starting...
AMBEserver: version 2017-11-18 git #3fb96a5
AMBEserver: RESETSOFTCFG Edition
Baud 230400
opened /dev/ttyUSB1 230400
AMBEserver: Opened serial port /dev/ttyUSB1 at 230400 bps.
AMBEserver: Couldn't find start byte in serial data
AMBEserver: Couldn't find start byte in serial data
AMBEserver: Couldn't find start byte in serial data

The DVMEGA AMBE on a shield starts up in codec mode. Can you put the AMBE in packet mode?
61 00 07 00 34 05 00 00 07 00 00
Hope it will work after that.

[marrold]

Hi, apologies for the delay getting back to you I've been really ill.

Someone else reported a similar issue, which I began to troubleshoot but they and I were both busy so we didn't get to the bottom of it. From what I could tell, even though I was forcing the AMBE into packet mode, it was continuing to output random bytes and ignoring all commands.

I am forcing the AMBE into packet mode using 61 00 07 00 34 05 00 00 0F 00 00 as shown below -

Line 52 of AMBEserver.c -

static const unsigned char DV3K_CONTROL_RESETSOFTCFG[] = {0x61, 0x00U, 0x07U, 0x00, 0x34U, 0x05U, 0x00U, 0x00U, 0x0FU, 0x00U, 0x00U};

Your control packet looks a little different, I'm not fully recovered yet so don't fancy diving into the AMBE 3000 docs, so may I ask where you found it, and what it does?

You're welcome to try updating that line of code and testing it. It shouldn't cause any long term issues a reboot won't solve, but I can't accept responsibility if it cooks your AMBE chip.

[marrold]

@lizardkings any feedback?

[marrold]

@lizardkings Any progress?

[lizardkings]

Do not have the board anymore to test.

[dl9sec]

Hi,

same problem here. The DVMEGA Arduino AMBE board is hardwired to interface McBSP/UART.
Together with a hardware reset it seems, that I got a plausible response, but after a product ID request it seems, that a channel packet firing in between prevents a proper init sequence:

AMBEserver: Starting...
AMBEserver: version 2020-09-22 git #735ef7e
AMBEserver: DL9SEC RESETSOFTCFG/TEAM6061 Edition
Baud 230400
opened /dev/ttyUSB0 230400
AMBEserver: Opened serial port /dev/ttyUSB0 at 230400 bps.
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 7C 24 2D 25 31 72 a....0|$-%1r
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 7E 20 69 46 65 68 a....0~ iFeh
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 0E 06 2F 21 61 7C a....0../!a|
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 6E 20 6D 01 64 2E a....0n m.d.
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 C6 8A ED 24 62 4F a....0...$bO
AMBEserver: Reset failed, trying again.
Received RESET Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 7C 02 4F 42 14 5E a....0|.OB.^
Received RESET Response: packet with type 0 and length 1:
0000: 61 00 01 00 39 a...9
AMBEserver: Reset Succesful after 2 attempt(s)
AMBEserver: invalid response to product id query
Received ProdID Response: packet with type 1 and length 8:
0000: 61 00 08 01 01 30 7E 24 0D 24 5B E8 a....0~$.$[.
AMBEserver: Could not initialize the DV3K!

Any ideas, maybe to drop channel packets until the prod ID response arrives?

Thanks.

73, Thorsten

[dl9sec]

Hi,

I can confirm, that if the DV3000 interface is configured to "none/UART" (2=H, 3=L, 4=H) instead of the default "McBSP/UART" (2=H, 3=H, 4=L), the DVMEGA Arduino AMBEShield (connected to a FTDI FT232R board) works well with this AMBEServer. Init is no problem in this configuration.

Ugly but working (pin 3 and 4 are lifted up from their pads):

[pa7lim]

The reason for this is the default codec mode ( is set by hardware pins ). You can simply send a command to set it to packet mode without changing the hardware. See 0x34 command in the AMBE3000 manual.

73,
David PA7LIM

[dl9sec]

Hi David,

thanks for the reply.

As Matthew mentioned earlyer, he already did the packet mode forcing, but it doesn't seem to work I think.

The AMBEServer from nwdigital also seems to be overstrained with the flood of unexpected packets while initialzing and stops much earlyer.

Would like to be the guinea pig if someone is able to get the packet mode change running...

73, Thorsten