Pandora nub problems


Let the dead thread arise again !!

Seems like I have this issue in the left nub... I use it as mouse movements, but after 3/5 seconds, it starts to go super slow in the up direction, sometimes so slow that it stops...

If I reset the nub configuration, it starts immediately to behave correctly... but after 3/5 seconds, the issue arise again...

Do you know if something was improved in this matter ?
Or maybe, do you think I can somehow automate a constant reset of the configuration every 5 seconds ? (As a last way to deal with the issue...)

It is not useful at all if it act this way :(

EDIT:

I'm playing a bit with what I found on the wiki, but I'm not sure if I'm able to write in this location
Code:
/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset
with sed, it constantly tells that can't create some kind of temporary file...
with Vim, it tells "sync failed" and that the file has changed before the modification
with mcedit it tells it cannot save the file
naturally I used sudo for every try...

seems to me that the file is constantly rewritten with "0"
 
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Can you do 'sudo echo 1>/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset'. Using a text editor for this task is likely to overcomplicate things, if it's not really designed for reading.
 
Can you do 'sudo echo 1>/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset'. Using a text editor for this task is likely to overcomplicate things, if it's not really designed for reading.

Yeah, that's the first thing I tried, but cat always returned 0, so I tried the other methods
 
But if you do something like 'while true; do echo 1>/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset; sleep 5; done' does it stop your problem happening? I'd guess it might present other problems though, such as the zero point wandering it it ends up resetting while you're holding the nub in a specific direction, but without trying it myself I couldn't say.
 
My left nub does this as well, it will work fine a few seconds after reset but will quickly act weirdly, drifting or not wanting to go in a direction. I've mostly disabled it.
 
Code:
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset
 
This works, when it's 1 the cursor is unresponsive, while on 0 it starts moving again, but then seems like that reset is not the solution... because if the cursor stops going in a direction, and then I issue that reset sequence, nothing changes...

There must be something else that happens when nub configurator is used... :confused:
 
In my experience there are a couple of things which cause the nubs to drift.

Unfortunately the two main culprits are physical :-(.

Resetting rarely helps much unless for some odd reason calibration gets skewed or you reset when the nub is not centered. Anyways, you should do the nub dance after each reset and therefore a timed reset (one you don't know about) would not help. To my understanding the nub controller chip tries to find the extremes of the analog signals to figure out where center is. Logically drifting should then not start occuring very quickly after a nubdance, but for some reason it does seem to happen if you hold the stick steady in a position for a long time for example while driving something that has throttle in the analog stick forward direction (I only ever noticed this in PC racing games which I only tried for a quick fix of nostalgia :). So, apparently the chip also forgets old extremes and tries to adapt somehow? I don't know exactly and I don't think the firmware for the nub control chip is available for checking?

I reset the nubs on every wakeup from sleep and have taken the habit to circle the nubs a couple of times before I start using the device and that is always enough before the problems become more physical...

Anyway, the next problem makes sense after the above description: signal loss due to oxidation/dirt in the nub. The nub is a more advanced version of what your average remote control has for buttons. And those also suffer from dirt and oxidation. I've reused one cleaned nub successfully, but it only lasted for maybe a year after cleaning, because...

There's the more severe issue: at first you get drift, but the nub still returns to the physical center. Eventually it doesn't go to the exact center, but close enough and at that point you start getting slight drift. I tend to correct this by "tapping" the nub back to center without even realizing it when it starts to happen. The mouse cursor tells nicely where center is (stops drifting), but games are more tricky :-(. However, finally the nub will no longer return to center at all at which point the drift will be pretty bad and also unpredicatble. Cleaning will not fix that: the rubbery bits inside the nub simply first "tire", then finally there's a tiny "rip" somewhere and then eventually the whole middle part of the nub rips from the circling area. At that point you no longer know where the parts might be and the nub is done for because the bits and pieces or rubbery bits start moving and rolling on top of each other and giving totally haywire signals.

How long this takes totally depends on how much and how you use the nubs, I'd imagine.

So, what helps? Simply cleaning already does require disassembly of the nub :-(. The tiny screws that hold the plastic to the nub PCB (which has the metal contacts) are of course in the bottom of the nub and that bottom is soldered to the Pandora mainboard. Over the years I've had to change the nubs multiple times. I ordered a fair supply of them from ED after I had to examine the first failed one and I figured the way there were built they were bound to break eventually and therefore anything I'd order would be put to use eventually. Though I still have a couple unused ones, I've also cleaned any that are not totally broken. If you have replacements, it's more convenient to put in a replacement and then figure out later whether the nub is broken or fixable via cleaning. My Pandora nubusage has finally started to drop as more and more apps requiring mice have become "impossible to use anyways", so I'm pretty hopeful the last nubs I install will already be installed while I listen to music from a brand new Pyra. But who knows :).

Word of warning: unsoldering the nubs, though not terribly difficult, can be challenging and definitely takes patience and some time. The contacts are all around the nub and each one of them also takes an electric signal somewhere. You basically loosen them one tiny fraction of a millimeter at a time (I tend to try and push a piece of oven-ok'd bakingpaper between the mainboard and nubpcb solder joints). If you heat the joint too long or forcefully try to lift one joint while the others are still too " low" , you risk viadamage to the mainboard :-(.

Pretty cool though, that the Pandora is still so important a part of my daily electronics that the nubs keep breaking and new ones are needed. The last nub soldering operation to my unit was done at about the turn of the year and I had lived with a single nub for a couple of tedious months at that time already!-)
 
I must admit, the general waywardness of my nubs made me learn to drive xfce under the keyboard more effectively. IIRC the only thing I couldn't do via the keyboard was the pandora's settings app thingy where you set CPU max and wifi and that.
 
I tested for some time the previous console command, and in the end, it seems to do the job, but only if launched this way:
Code:
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset;echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset

... because if you set it to 1 and wait and then 0, it fails many times... it seems working only when the reset sequence is fast...

So, now the questions are:

1) How I can I launch that command automatically every minute ? Is there some kind of "CRON-like" service on this OS ?
2) How to call that command without writing the password every time ?
 
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@PowerGod

Bash:
sudo /bin/bash -c 'while :;do echo 1 | tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset;echo 0 | tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset;sleep 60;done' &

The bash -c allows you to run a set of commands inside the single quotes.
The while :; ..... sleep 60;done is a loop that sleeps each minute.
No cron.

edit: silly me, forgot to remove the sudo's. Maybe you can remove the tee, and just echo 1>/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset; directly.
If you want, I can create a small C program that you can suid (runs as root, when you call it as the user). (suid does not work on scripts)
 
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Tried for a while with different timings but seems like to solve the issue only 1/3 of the times, randomly
 
Had the same issues with my 1GHz and Rebirth units, Long ago on my 1GHz I sent it back to Germany for some service, likely LCD cable?, but I also asked to have ED to replace the left nub as well while it was over there and it's been rock solid ever since. My Rebirth unit has the issue to a lesser extent, It seems to be responsive to nub dances and calibration resets and such, my 1GHz unit used to just flake out and never come back, then later fully died.
 
Good news (at least for me), my Left Nub started working again without the need of configurations at all... I just used BRUTE FORCE !! :mad:

Because sometimes electronics needs some punches to start working !! :cool:

A Nub not able to move the mouse pointer where I wanted was absolutely not useful to me, so I had nothing to lose and I started forcing it in all directions, I mean really force it against the plastic borders with all my strength !!

The issue I had was that when I was pointing UP, the mouse pointer was going DOWN... it was working in all the other directions, but it was impossible to move the pointer up... resetting the calibration was just making it work only for less then a minute, and then the pointer was starting again to go down...

So, I noticed that when REALLY FORCING THE NUB UP, the pointer was going up for a pixel or two in a random way, and with random stops... then I found that while forcing it up, if I also kept rotating it a little to the left and right, the pointer was moving a little faster to the top of the display, but not in a straight vertical way, only in diagonal.
The more time I did this and more the pointer was moving better... this became my little hand training every time I was waiting to some loading or some elaboration to finish.

In some weeks, it became better and better... and now is PERFECT !!
I don't need anymore to force it, it just works at every boot, with the same acceleration in every direction and without the need of calibration at all.
 
Nice, whatever works for you. I'd advise against users putting their full strength to a little bit of plastic, but perhaps I'm just stronger than you. But if it's stopping you using your Pandora and you've tried everything else, then I can't say don't do it, but I'd be very careful in following this advice.
 
It is called "Nub Dancing" and you simply did a stronger Nub Dancing ;)
That help with many Nubs on Pandoras.

I am glad that it did help you too...helped here too with the golden Pandora Nubs :)
 
@levi : I used all the force I can dealt but there was a limit, it's not easy to use too much force without making the thumb slip away from the nub, there is not a great grab there.

@ingoreis : yeah, I tried that a lot of times without results, at some point I just took it to the next level :cool:
 
My 1Ghz Left nub was bad, I mean no amount nub dancing or force would fix it. I had EvilDragon change it when I had it in for the infamous LCD cable on the early 1GHz units.
 
My 1Ghz left nub is bad as well. It works barely enough to access the menus in OpenBox and launch "AB Mouse". Since my Pandora case isn't in top shape and I also have a broken shoulder button I'm considering sending it to ED to get it all fixed... but that'd mean being Pandora-less for some time so I keep pushing this back.
 
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