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I have a IRTOY bought from dangerousprototypes. I run it in windows 7 x64 with WinLirc 0.9c. But sometimes the devices just hangs all of a sudden and I need to remove and reattach it to make it work again. Disable and enable com port from device manager ofter results in an error message with windows saying that the device could not be activated.

So it looks like an hardware issue related to the IRTOY. Now I am looking for a device to cut off the Power going over USB. It should be able to cut off the power to the device remotely. It sould actually simulate a physical removal of the device of the usb port, like a relay with male and female usb connectors.

Is there any solution to this issue?

Sambir
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1 Answers1

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Apparently the IRTOY has a bug, and needs total reboot, and the power-off is the only means to do this. Bad.

One solution to toggle the VBUS power by software would be to use a USB hub with switchable port power controllers (These are usually difficult to find, but still easier than to find a PC mainboard with port power controllers). Then you should manage to issue ClearPortFeature(PORT_POWER) to the port with connected IRTOY, and then SetPortFeature(PORT_POWER).

How exactly to do this from application space I am not sure, but the free USB Device Tree Viewer (by Uwe Sieber) can set the port VBUS off and on using pop-up option "Restart Device". Keep in mind that a USB port usually have a sizable capacitor attached, so it might take some time to bleed the VBUS, so the Clear and Set command must be properly apart in time. Unfortunately, the USBTreeView does it too fast. Alternatively, you can restart the entire hub, it takes long enough time to turn VBUS off on its downstream ports.

If Uwe doesn't have his source code open, you will need to go to Microsoft SDK for main USBView source code, and figure out how to issue the port disable/enable commands to driver.

Ale..chenski
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