Solved F200 Crashing When Opening Depth Stream

Philip_N_ · ‎02-26-2015

Hi all,

I have been experiencing problems with my f200 crashing and becoming unresponsive when opening up the depth stream on my laptop (core i7 4790, gtx 980 etc). The colour data works fine and the f200 is attached to the main superspeed USB3.0 port, as many other people on the forums have mentioned, yet still the powering on of the laser causes the camera to crash.

We spliced a USB3.0 extender cable to see how much current the f200 was drawing on our working case of a Surface Pro 3, and found that when the laser is on the f200 draws just over 600 mA. We then severed the power lines in the extender cable and powered the f200 purely from an external 5V supply. This allowed us to use the f200 on the previous non-working laptops. I am awaiting delivery of a Y-cable extender that will allow me to do the same thing but just draw the power from an additional USB port. I'll report back on the success of that when it gets delivered.

So in summary the f200 is quite power hungry and draws just too much for some USB3.0 ports, even if they are Intel controlled. I am not sure how this can be quantified as a prerequisite condition, as I found it very difficult to find out how much a port can deliver without hooking up some specialist equipment. So perhaps a breaker box, or Y-cable should be supplied or recommended on purchase.

Thanks,

Phil

MartyG · ‎02-26-2015

Glad you found a solution, Phillip! The co-owner of my company is always coming up with cool electronics solutions like that, so I'm hugely in admiration of anyone who can do that stuff. I can just about solder and weld and use a multimeter, so I appreciate the skill that goes into practical projects like your USB splice. :)

simsam7 · ‎02-26-2015

That's very valuable advice, I really hope that someone from Intel pick's up on this. Well done!

samontab · ‎02-28-2015

Wouldn't the Y-cable basically duplicate the data as well?. The PC would be looking at two cameras being connected at the same time at different ports with the same id, right?