Troubleshooting BioDisplay:
1. Connecting BioDisplay with the MindDrive. Red light on the MindDrive must be on!
A. Power. The MindDrive uses a 9v DC power supply. I have also successfully run it from a standard 9v battery with the correct adapter, and from a transforming USB adapter from 5 to 9v again to the correct input plug.
Notes:
The mind drive unit (square) power adapter only accepts 110 v. Since power in Many countries (including India) use 220v you either need a transformer, or need to construct a 9v battery pigtail or USB adapter and avoid the power supply altogether.
You cannot use one of the little (non-transforming) adapters on the power supply to plug into the wall or the supply will burn out and possibly also fry the machine!
Transformers are easy to come by, and the 9v adapter is not difficult to construct.
If there is no red light, either the unit is not getting it’s required 9v DC or the unit is burned out from applying 220v to the 110v supply.
2. USB-serial connection: The main BioDisplay functions are only able to read data coming into the MindDrive from com1. If your computer (still) has a serial port, this is easy. If you are coming in via USB, you will need a compatible USB-serial adapter. I have found the blue plastic end variety much more reliable than the green. Sometimes the green variety need to use an older software driver to function. Please find a collection of drivers posted in the file area.
Occasionally, your system may revert to a prior setting, or “forget” that the SUB-serial requires com1. IN that case, go to your control panel, system, hardware, device manager, ports, advanced settings, and reset the com port to com1. Picts below:
After setting the com port, turn the MindDrive off and then on again. Be sure the red light is on. The Press the Start MindDrive button 1X. If you press twice, you will get an error.
When your MindDrive is running, there will be a dos window running in the background. If you bring it to focus, it will appear as a black box with numbers scrolling quickly across it from bottom to top. There will also be a tab for it below in your windows taskbar.
Pressing the Start MindDrive button too soon – while a dos window is currently running, will attempt to open a second dos window which will conflict with the first! If you see two dos window tabs in your windows task bar below, you have too many attempting to run.
If you see 2 or more DOS tabs in the bottom taskbar, you may need to manually close them out. Right-click the tab (see circled tab above) and close. If the first dos window connected successfully, you can simply close the 2nd and you will still be reading data from the first. Click the first DOS tab to see if data is scrolling quickly. If it is static, the MindDrive did not connect and you will need to re-try.
Check all your connections and make sure that the finger sensor plug is completely inserted. The unit will fail to connect if the finger sensor plug is not correctly plugged in.