Wytron dvd tower duplicator problem

Newbie Forum
#1

Got a barebones unit with the Wytron 688 controller as I had a case of Lite-On Light Scribe IDE DVD drives (long story), the tower works fine to copy CD, however it locks up at 62 meg when copying DVDs. I thought it might be a speed issue so I added a hard drive, the unit will now write to the hard drive a full dvd worth, but will not write the dvd out and it still locks up at the 62 meg point. Any suggestions?

If this is the wrong forum I apologize in advance. i also want to thank all in advance.

#2

What software are you using and what is the model and firmware of the lighton units? What else is connect to the tower? Maybe get better media and slow the speed down. Also what is the media type? Is it -/+R or DL+R? What is meant by 62 Megs? You start out with some information but then gave vague info on specs and you didn’t state what kinda error it indicated to you?

#3

standalone tower not connected to pc, wytron 688 unit with what I think is 3.29 firmware version, I will check that when in office. the Lite-on drives are all current, with manufacture dates in 2007- the 62 meg mark comes from lcd panel on the front of the wytron controller- media has been variety of maxwell, yuden both -R and +R not rw, etc. all same result, tried slowing down to 1x speed and same result as well

#4

wytron firmware is 3.36 also tried Philips 16x dvd+r and imation 8x -r

#5

Have you tried to go to their web site and contacted them yet?

#6

yes contacted them and they were less than helpful, one email suggesting hard drive, which had already been tried and as I said with hard drive, it will read and create what I assume is an iso image but when writing it freezes each time. It also freezes during an emulate function. CD copying works fine both using hard drive and no hard drive.

#7

Assumption #1: all of the optical drives attached to the controller are the same make, model and firmware release. The copy controllers assume a similar level of throughput.

Assumption #2: you are using blank media that is acceptable for that drive: type, code and quality.

Have you tried only using one or two targets instead of all targets at once. Have you tried using only drives 4 and 5 vs. only 1 and 2? Etc.

Is the cabling made of known high-quality 80-conductor UDMA capable cable? Have you tried swapping out cables?

Is the power supply in the case at or near the maximum on one of the rails? DVD writing uses more power than CD writing.

-brendan

#8

Has anyone else used it besides you or whom did the setup? And what is the warranty for that unit ?

#9

My self and one other person tried the unit , same results. Tried with different media also with only one burner attached (can’t be a mis match then) and same result at same spot at 62 meg into DVD burn. CD’s burn fine at what I think is a 48X speed. It works fine for CD which is main use for the thing. I washoping to also get DVD burning to work as well for the few times we need that, but it appears it does not want to go there. The Lite-On drives are mixed however I tried with I think 3 just three together with all of those being LH-20A1P’s all with most recent firmware. Seems to make no difference in spot where it stalls/freezes.

#10

This is a unusual problem you have described. There are some units that look like Wytron boards but are knock-offs. You might try to reflash the firmware to the latest version. 3.38

#11

So is the unit still under warranty or not? And if they are this much trouble with tech or customer service, I would return them back to the company and report them to the BBB for the merchandise quality and customer service. Maybe you won’t this way but at find the warranty and if your not satisfy I would return that unit back and get a refund. Have you also search the web about your particular unit that might be another solution you want to try.

#12

I cannot speak for the individual unit that PiperPilot has, or where the unit was purchased. But I can speak to the general quality of Wytron products because I am one of the main people responsible for their repair in the U.S… If I cannot fix the controller here, I will send it to Taiwan. Considering the large number of controllers that Wytron sells I get very very few return units with bad components. A good Wytron reseller should offer a 1 year warranty and should be able to respond to the customer’s problems promptly. I know that I provide quality support for customers that purchase through my channel. There are other “Grey Market” channels that do not offer the level of support that I provide. But this is true for a lot of products these days, not just Wytron. I have lurked around this forum for quite a while trying to assist users of Wytron controllers, regardless of whether they were purchased from my channel or not. As far as complaining to the BBB, I say “absolutely”. And go a step further, make your complaint known to Wytron directly. The sales and marketing managers can read, write and speak English. I know for a fact that they follow up customer complaints about resellers and will come down on resellers that do not service their customers.

#13

How come you hadn’t first mentioned you that you were repair side of Wytron controllers or given him a more detailed contact as whom or who to call to get better service for his controller problem? But only after I told him to send it back to Wytron to get a refund after he had to deal with Wytron already and didn’t get much a response-did we get a response from a repair person on here about Wytron?

#14

I work for an authorized distributor of Wytron products in the U.S… We sell to retailers in north America and Canada. I am responsible for the initial troubleshooting and repair of units that come to me from retailers that purchase from my company. We are not the only distributor of Wytron products here in the U.S. but we are the largest.

If PiperPilot had purchased his product from one of our customers, and found it to have problems, and returned the unit to where it was purchased from, the unit might very well be sitting in front of me on my repair bench right now. I would reflash the firmware, inspect the unit for any faulty surface mount components that are bench replaceable and do a full copy/compare burn test. If I can fix the unit, I will, and I will return it to the retailer that PiperPilot had originally bought it from. If I cannot fix it, and it is under warranty, I will return it to the Wytron factory in Taipei.

If PiperPilot had purchased the unit from a retailer that, in turn, purchases from another distributer (or purchases their stock from grey market sources), I would never see the unit in the first place. These other distributors may not offer the same level of support that my company does, that I insist on.

And now I will try to answer coolcolors questions.

  1. "How come you hadn’t first mentioned you that you were repair side of Wytron controllers"
    If I thought that information was important as it regarded the thread, I would have mentioned it. I admit that my first post on this particular thread only referred to updating firmware, I could have included more information about myself, I am sorry for that.

  2. "given him a more detailed contact as whom or who to call to get better service for his controller problem"
    If PiperPilot needs to have his work done under warranty. PiperPilot should contact the retailer where the unit was purchased from. I know that you asked PiperPilot if he had gone to “their website”, and PiperPilot had replied “yes contacted them and they were less than helpful”. I assume PiperPilot had contacted the Wytron factory directly. I am sorry that he did not get an answer to his problem. I do not know who PiperPilot originally purchased his unit from.

  3. "But only after I told him to send it back to Wytron to get a refund after he had to deal with Wytron already and didn’t get much a response-did we get a response from a repair person on here about Wytron"
    I admit that I did not post to this particular thread as timely as I would have liked. I also do not want to give the impression that I am “holding back” on giving advice. I would like to respectfully add that I am not being paid for, or under any obligation to post advice to these forums; in a timely fashion or not. I lurk in this forum and try to answer questions about topics I have knowledge of because I want to support this forum. After all, I use this forum when I need information relating to topics I do not have extensive knowledge of. I hope you can understand that.

Coolcolors, I notice that you have been a member since 04, and have contributed almost 800 posts to this forum. By contrast, I am a very low level member of this forum. I want to offer you my respect for contributing so much to this forum. I hope you can believe that I have no hidden agenda and I am not a shill for Wytron. I do not work directly for Wytron, just for a distributor that supports Wytron products. My job is to provide technical support and repair services for a wide range of computer related products. Whatever products I do support, however, I try my best to assist my customers and resolve the problem with prompt and quality service. That is something I do for my own reputation, not Wytron’s. I can say that, in general, I have have had a good working relationship with Wytron in terms of product support but I know that it can be difficult for an individual customer to get a satisfactory response from a manufacturer, especially one located in a different country.

#15

No, my response wasn’t to say that your holding back information but that it would be good to hear from someone that repairs or works on such unit to inform the buyer as to what options they have to go about in resolving their problems. This way we can asure the end users they are getting the most up to date information that they can read over and decide on what to do next. But yes, again I am not inferring anything bad on the part support or repair side for the end user. Trust me being since 04 doesn’t mean I’m an expert by any means…I can only give from my experiences on hardware and software I played with and used so that other people or users won’t do the same mistakes I done…hardware and computer mistakes along with software mistakes cost time and money for just the users to figure out and find a solutions so if others have figure it out. Then it’s will be helpful that others will get a better solutions reading how others’ solutions.

#16

For some, loosing time is a bigger problem. For others, saving money is more important. You mentioned that it is good for the end user to have some information so that they can understand what options to try in order to solve the problem. I completely agree. In this particular case, it is very difficult to diagnose the problem.

I can say what I think is going on, but not the reason why.

From what piperpilot says, the unit starts up, recognizes the drives, begins the copy process, and stops at “62 meg”. The wytron 688 unit will copy into the memory cache first and then copy to the writers. The 688 memory cache is 64MB but the LCD will show 62MB when it is full and ready to write to the drives.

It sounds like, when piperpilot is copying DVDs, the unit stops after the memory cache is full and right before the unit is supposed to actually send the data to be burned to the DVD. No data is actually written to the DVD discs at all.

piperpilot has stated that different types of media was used, all with the same result.

The unit copies CDs correctly, using the same drives.

So the only difference is the DVD media, or the DVD master data.

Or the firmware might be corrupted.

Or some setting on the unit was accidentally changed.

At this point, the best advice I could give would be to reflash the firmware. Reflashing will also reset all of the settings to their defaults.

Piperpilot’s vendor should be able to provide the firmware, which can be burned to a CD and then used with the unit’s “update” function.

If Piperpilot cannot get the file from his vendor, then he could PM me.

#17

So paperpilot was other news has happened on your side of the wytron problem?

#18

NOBUnga thanks for the help. The down time of sending unit back to Copystars in Calif. (the vendor I purchased it from) will be a problem as my staff now has fallen in love with the unit for CD burning which is its main function. I would like to get dvd burning to work, but to be honest that is not as great an issue. The instructions supplied by copystars/wytron as to how to flash and set the unit up are less than a model of clarity and I have not been able to successfully reflash the unit. It does however burn the cd at a very good speed.

#19

Piperpilot, If copystars is not helping, and they are a channel I do [B]not[/B] work with, please PM me and I will try to help you.

coolcolors, if I want to send the latest firmware file to piperpilot anonymously, what would be your suggestion? What about those free Upload/Download sites? Are they any good?

#20

copystars sent a newer firmware, however unit when I try to flash it gives an error message of “unsupported drive”