Fault Indicator Flashes Briefly on TeKaDe FS220

[ash]

Hello. Apologies in advance for the relatively basic questions!

My FS220 and V.10 interface have been serving me well for the past six months or so (huge thanks to Sean for the V.10 card), however a potential problem has arisen in the past few days for no obvious reason. When I power down the FS220, the fault light briefly flashes (for about 200ms) before the device turns completely off. It powers back up again with no issue, and seems entirely operational, however I'm worried that this is abnormal, and I don't have the expertise or confidence to triage it further. Nothing has significantly changed since it started exhibiting this behaviour, aside from moving it from one desk to another in my house. It's rather light (about 50kg), so I can't imagine it got internally damaged from the move, however nor can I be certain that this behaviour wasn't present before moving it and I just never noticed.

Any diagnosis tips? The manual [1 (actual page 45; inscribed page 33)] terms the light a "collective fault indicator", suggesting it might be tricky to narrow down the particulars of the issue.

Furthermore, I wanted to ask whether it is recommended to leave the device on all the time, or only power it up when needed? I know older electronics do not take kindly to the latter (frequent changes in power), but I do not want to burn through the lifetime in a few years by leaving it on 24/7! I probably actually use it about four hours a day for my programming hobby, as I develop teleprinter drivers for the Linux kernel.

Thanks very much for any pointers.

[1] https://cryptomuseum.com/telex/tekade/f ... /fs200.pdf

[JKde]

Hello Ashley,

the FS220 has a voltage observer circuit for each voltage path in the power supply. If one voltage is down, the red LED is on.
On powering on or off the voltage path move up/down at different speeds. So it is normal to see the red LED for 200ms.

Normally the FS220 is used with a control device (FAG200) which switches the FS220 power on and off for each connection. The FS220 is designed to be switched on/off.
Note that the FS220 has a power consumption of 20 Watt in idle mode! It's about 50 Euro per year at 24/7!

I am interested in your project "drivers for the Linux kernel". If the project is public (GitHub, ...) please send me a PN.
You may find some useful Infos for your project at https://github.com/fablab-wue/piTelex/wiki/HW_V10

[ash]

the FS220 has a voltage observer circuit for each voltage path in the power supply. If one voltage is down, the red LED is on.
On powering on or off the voltage path move up/down at different speeds. So it is normal to see the red LED for 200ms.

That's great to know; thanks.

Normally the FS220 is used with a control device (FAG200) which switches the FS220 power on and off for each connection. The FS220 is designed to be switched on/off.
Note that the FS220 has a power consumption of 20 Watt in idle mode! It's about 50 Euro per year at 24/7!

That makes sense. I wasn't really concerned about the cost, I just didn't want to burn through the lifetime of the components needlessly; it's a relief to hear these models are designed to be switched on and off.

I am interested in your project "drivers for the Linux kernel". If the project is public (GitHub, ...) please send me a PN.

It's still in development, unfortunately. I'll obviously open it up once it's complete for Beta testing (in a few weeks, perhaps a month). I'm also working on a front-end to communicate between a teleprinter and Linux machine from the command line. Interfacing with the Telex Internet service would also be nice, and there seems to be some decent published protocol specifications. I've been writing C on Linux for over half my life, and yet Pthreads still manage to frustrate me to no end.

You may find some useful Infos for your project at https://github.com/fablab-wue/piTelex/wiki/HW_V10

That repository wiki is incredibly useful; I used it when first researching UARTs and serial interfaces for my TeKaDe. This Baudot mapping is also rather useful at times: https://cryptomuseum.com/crypto/baudot.htm