Problem With Pandora Controls

[quartercast]

Hello,

I received my Panda a couple of days ago and although I love it, it has some major faults. It is a legit two nub Pandora, but I've found the right nub cannot detect "down" properly. If I reset the nub, it does detect "down" for about 1 minute, and then the problem comes back again. Its very strange... I've reset it many times and it still comes back. Is there any solution to this? Its also really difficult to use as a left/right click button, the left click is not sensitive while the right click is.

Also, the "right" direction on my dpad is very spongy and its popping out a bit on the right hand side. It was like this when I got it, I thought it might correct itself with a bit of use but it's still protruding.

On top of all that, there's a small crack next to the USB port at the back

What to do? I love my Pandora, but it's not well at the moment...

 

[mali]

Regarding the nub, the only things I can suggest is doing the calibration dance and also moving it in full circles while calibrating. I remember reading that it works best to calibrate while booting and center the nubs as accurately as possible when doing the calibration dance. Additionally you can try to blow some air under the nub to get rid of dirt if there is any.

The dpad isn't glued on properly and the crack is caused by tightening one screw too much. You should mail GBAX so they can improve their QC.

edit: This is interesting

one nuber here. after some research, I discover (in my case) is a calibration problem. on boot the nub should be pressed about 1mm higher than the center. appart from that, it works

 

[quartercast]

Thanks mali, I checked out the calibration dance and tried that - it's still buggered. Also tried compressed air, no go there.

That makes sense, they must not have glued that side of the dpad component down, it's all wonky on one side.

About the crack - I reckon the person who assembled it tried to minimize the gap between the top and bottom pieces and, like you said, screw that section in too tight.

Well I guess I'll send off an email, see what happens

 

[quartercast]

Sorry for double posting, in regards to your edit. Interestingly, I just rebooted the panda with the right nub in the NW direction. Once xfce was up and running, i let the nub move back to the center, and the mouse cursor didn't move at all (shouldn't it?) I then played with the directions, and it could sense down, up, left, right, but not NW (sort of to be expected). This lasted for about 30 seconds, and then the nub reverted back to its previous behaviour (sensing U, L, R but not D). I think this nub's a write off...

 

[j.pickens]

My suggestion would be for whatever the calibration software is that runs during the bootup to be made available while running.
The nub reset function in the nub settings menu doesn't do the same thing as the bootup calibration AFAIK.

Would it be possible to do this?

 

[God Ginrai]

My suggestion would be for whatever the calibration software is that runs during the bootup to be made available while running.
The nub reset function in the nub settings menu doesn't do the same thing as the bootup calibration AFAIK.

Would it be possible to do this?

It's not calibration software. There is a window during which you calibrate the nubs. This window is for a certain period of time after the nubs are powered up.

-God Ginrai

 

[torpor]

There should be a 'first-boot nub calibration' app that gets fired up first of all, so the nubs can be properly calibrated each time .. no?

 

[Nation.A.List]

There should be a 'first-boot nub calibration' app that gets fired up first of all, so the nubs can be properly calibrated each time .. no?

Absolutely! +1

 

[quartercast]

+1 from me, although I don't think it'll make a lot of difference in my case

Update: I've emailed the lovely Jacquelyn at GBAX, see what she has to say. I'd prefer not to have to send it back, but the nub is starting to P me off now. The left click is really not sensitive anymore.

Is there any way to set the right shoulder button to be a left click? At the moment it's not set to any function in XFCE right?

Also, I just realised the Y button is really quite gummy compared to the other gaming buttons.. strange!

 

[whynodd]

Is there any way to set the right shoulder button to be a left click? At the moment it's not set to any function in XFCE right?

Right Shoulder is the Ctrl-Key. Left Shoulder is Shift. Its very handy for shotcuts while webbrowsing.
Chromium:
new Tab: Ctrl+T
close Tab: Ctrl+W
...

 

[quartercast]

OK thanks. I wonder if I can set the nub to do shift/ctrl, and the shoulder buttons to do left click/right click.

 

[quartercast]

Hey has anyone got garbled sound through the headphone output? My panda output weird audio in gnome player, exaile and psx4pandora when using headphones, changing audio driver didn't seem to do anything.

Mali, where are you?

 

[mali]

^ I'm here, but I have no clue

The sound is clean through the internal speakers, but "garbled" through headphones? Maybe it's clipping and you have to lower the output on the headphone port via ALSA software mixer. Just guessing here.

 

[quartercast]

I figured it out, the Panda doesn't like my cygnett handsfree earphones, it does output correctly to my dodgy samsung jet earphones.

fancy that huh, my dsi and dingoo work fine with them. when i use them on the panda it sounds like i'm in a fish bowl.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I've seen the program by notaz that shows some numbers It would be nice to see what is actually hapening with the nubs. Once in a while I get a unresponsiveness either to the left or to the right. Resetting the nub doesnt help restarting the pandora does. A bit more graphical calibration menu/app would be nice in the future.

 

[mali]

I figured it out, the Panda doesn't like my cygnett handsfree earphones, it does output correctly to my dodgy samsung jet earphones.

fancy that huh, my dsi and dingoo work fine with them. when i use them on the panda it sounds like i'm in a fish bowl.

The plug might be incompatible with Pandora's socket. It's actually a headset port with four contacts. The pinout differs between brands, for example iPhone headphones aren't compatible either.

 

[quartercast]

OK, that explains it. They are branded as iphone compatible. But I thought at least the stereo output would work with the pandora's pinout.

 

[mali]

^ Ground and microphone contacts are switched, iirc.

 

[WizardStan]

quick rant: I now greatly loath apple for this one reason. Not just their headphones, but also the 5mm->RCA video cables have just one line flipped, making normal cables incompatible. It is otherwise the exact same, and you could take a normal (cheap) cable and just splice it yourself, instead of paying ridiculous amounts for the iPod branded version. This in and of itself is not my problem, however: Apple is not the first to come up with "proprietary" connectors. My problem is that I walk into an electronics store looking for just a normal cable, and am confronted with a wall of "iPod compatible" cables, and you need to find the one that they may have in stock that isn't iPod compatible. But because all the tips are the same, you don't actually know for certain until you've tried it, and even then you might just end up with fishbowl sounds and think it's the device at fault. I still haven't found a normal 5mm->RCA cable that wasn't iPod compatible (although it was almost two years ago that I actually went looking for one). I eventually gave up, bought a cheap headset, and just spliced my own.
If you're going to use a proprietary layout, at least use a proprietary connector! Sheesh!
Rant over.

 

[mcqfesijiba]

So there are no other ways to calibrate the nubs other than the 'dance'? I have done the dance, but no luck. Now maybe my nubs are faulty, but both nubs behave in the exact same way (y axis barely seem to be detected, if at all). If I switch my right nub to be the mouse pointer control, it does the exact same thing as my left does. It seems strange to me that both would be faulty in identical manners. Could calibration be faulty instead? I did do one reflash of the firmware to see if that would help. No luck there either.