USBinator revenge

[RingLord]

Hello everyone,

 

I have a setup with 60 of these microcontrollers: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3800.

 

As I am lazy and do not want to upload codes one by one, I bought four 16-port USB hubs: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B07KHRLSTT/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1&language=en_GB.

The problem is that I am not able to plug in more than 30 (2 hubs) on the integrated ports of the PC.

 

So, I also bought a USB 3 Port Expansion Card: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0BSG6XCVD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1&language=en_GB.

Windows detects all 60 this time! But, when I try to upload code by plugging a hub into it, it eventually fails randomly after some uploads...

I also tried with another expansion card found in the lab, but same issue (although statistics with N=2, you know...).

 

Each of the microcontrollers is theorically at 9600 bauds.

 

The PC is a DELL Precision 7920: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/notre-gamme-pro/station-de-travail-fixe-precision-7920/spd/precision-7920-workstation

- Windows 10
- Two Intel Xeon Gold
- 192 GB of RAM
- Quadro RTX 4000
- Two 1TB SSD + 500MB SSD + 12TB HDD

 

I tried with Ubuntu, but it does not seem to work either...

Remember, everything works when the hub is plugged into an integrated port of the PC, but when plugged into an expansion card, it fails.

[Sawa Takahashi]

This post won't be of much use, but anyway.

Multiple USB controllers are a pain to deal with. Majorly due to drivers not being robust enough or updating to correct bugs (and creating bugs at the same time...)

As for the max number of hubs you can have, this depends on the type of controller but 32 is typical (so 30 makes sense).

One way to go around is to use ports tied to different controllers. Most desktops use the same controller for all the front ports, but the back ports are tied to a different controller. So using both front and back USB ports may result in more than 30 ports available.

Good luck !