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View Full Version : Xenetech Viper Guru's?



Scott Shepherd
12-30-2014, 6:56 PM
Anyone out there well versed in the Viper system. Long story short, we bought another Xenetech rotary that has the Viper system on it (used), and it is being shipped here. After ordering it, there was one on eBay about 2 hours away that didn't have the Viper system, for cheap, missing the ISA board. I went and got that, figuring I'd like to have it for spare parts or to do something else with later. It turns out that machine has very light usage and appears to run well. All the Viper system showed up today for the machine in transit, so I hooked up the Viper system to the system I just bought and picked up.

I'm a little confused on what's supposed to be happening or the sequence of things. If I go into he Pendant and look for jobs, there's a couple stored in the control. They run, the machine runs, and everything seems right with the world. If I open the "connection manager" or "Communication Manager" or whatever it's called, it shows the Viper system and says it's online and connected. If I go into the Graphic Workstation software and draw something, hit F1, at the bottom, it shows "No Connection" and if you click on it, there's nothing to pick.

It's as if the XGW software isn't connected to the Viper system. In the manual, it shows a little tools icon that stays in the system tray and when I click that, nothing happens. If I right click and say "Open", it doesn't do anything.

The machines are the same size, but I'm suspecting there's a reason it's not seeing that machine and I'm not sure where to resolve it. I was working through the Xenetech website's Knowledgebase and in the middle of it, their site stopped responding for a couple hours.

It mentioned a cross over cable marked with "Cross" to directly hook the ethernet of the computer to the ethernet on the VCS, they specifically mentioned it was gray. The box of stuff had 1 ethernet cable and it's gray, but it's not marked "Cross". I have hooked it direct, and I have hooked it our Cisco router with a straight cable as well. Both yield the same results.

What step am I missing?

Bob A Miller
12-30-2014, 9:30 PM
Not a viper guru but .... A cross over Ethernet cable typically has two pins swapped on the cable ( forgot which ones). When I was in network mgt, ours always came as yellow cables. So my guess is get a local company that supply's Ethernet cables to give you a known good cross over cable & try that. I would think that should fix it...

Bob

Scott Shepherd
12-30-2014, 9:48 PM
Thanks Bob, they give two options, one is to hook the computer directly to the Viper Control System using the cross over cable, and two, is to hook the Viper Control System to your network router using a standard cable and then hook your computer to the network router or wireless. Right now, I have it hooked up through the network using non-cross over cables, as directed. Both yield the same result.

The system shows up in the connection manager, but doesn't show up in the Xenetech Graphics Software as available.

Bob A Miller
12-31-2014, 12:51 PM
Well not making it easy.. Did they tell you if there are any parameters on there software...ie: operating system compatibility issues, ram requirement...that sort of thing? So have you got a PC/laptop with an older OS XP comes to mind) to try it in... Then try that with another known good cross over cable.

If you get the same result... Then do they have a configuration or preference setup section somewhere? Other then that, running out of ideas. There is a dos command.. Got to check on & see if it will work on the connectivity part you have with an old bench tech I know...

bob

Scott Shepherd
12-31-2014, 12:58 PM
Thanks Bob, I checked the cable and it wasn't a cross over cable, so I went to the store, bought a proper cross over cable, hooked the computer directly to the machine and we're working through it now. I've got a call in to tech support so I'm just going to pay them to figure it out :)

Hopefully we'll be resolved soon.

Scott Shepherd
12-31-2014, 2:00 PM
Problem solved. There was an IP address conflict to start with and once that was resolved, it still didn't work. They downloaded and installed the latest Viper Control Software, installed that, and immediately saw everything and ran. We're all good to go!

Bob A Miller
12-31-2014, 4:04 PM
Good stuff.. Glad to hear it's resolved.

bob