On occasion, you may find a tracker that does not behave as expected. It may not start properly when hovering over a starter, not read a table location, or simply be unresponsive. Most often this is attributable to the Tracker needing to be fully charged.
Please note the following tips when caring for and ensuring your Trackers remain properly charged:
- Each base may stack up to 15 units each using a DC power supply only
- Ensure that the power supply connected to each Charging Base is 12V DC
- It's best practice to not daisy-chain charging bases together using jumper cables; rather, each charging base should be directly plugged into a power supply
- Yellow LRS light on the top of the Tracker should not pulse when the Tracker is on charge. Whereas when off charge, the LRS light at the top does continually pulse. Therefore, if the LRS light is pulsing when placed on the charge stack, either the Trackers are not stacked properly or the power supply or connection is bad.
- The Tracker should vibrate when placed on Starter/Clearer – failure to do so may indicate that the unit may not be charging properly or there may be a network issue
Troubleshooting and maintaining trackers:
Charge trackers for at least 20 minutes to troubleshoot them
- 1st, if you appear to have a few trackers that are not working, first thing is always to mark them with a sticky note or some way so they are not disturbed, so the trackers can charge for at least 20 minutes.
- You can have a tracker that was in fact left off the charger too long and is completely dead, not working right now.
Put trackers on the charger 1 at a time:
- When you put trackers on the charger, it is important to put them on 1 at a time.
- You want to see that the tracker has a red light to signify that it is charging. If no red charging light, the tracker is dead, may prohibit trackers put above it from charging too / might be acting as an impasse to power.
- Never Stack Trackers more than 15 high.
- Best practices -- only stack 12 high so the trackers will get the most amount of charge in the shortest amount of time, to use with the next guest…
Tracker charging pins work as follows:
- The front charging pin is for positioning only; no power running through the front charging pin.
- When charging - The 2 back pins - power goes up the stack on 1 side and down the stack on the other, after reaching the top.
- So if you have a dead tracker in the middle, everything above that tracker is likely not going to charge effectively.
- It is important to put them on the charger stack 1 at at a time for testing / quick evaluation.
Trackers taken off the charger
- When a tracker comes off the charger, if on the charger for over 20 minutes, it will vibrate 1 time to show it is awake. If just put on the charger and then taken off, it will not vibrate. It has not been dormant for enough time.
- When you take a tracker off the charger, it will have a pulsing Yellow LRS logo.
- If the tracker does not have a pulsing logo, it is dead and will not work.
If trackers will charge, but not start
- If you have trackers that appear to be charging and will not start / show up on the screen, and in reference to the notes you sent - You want to put the tracker over a starter dock a few times, and see if you can associate it to the system. This might take 3 or 4 times to put it down, and then lift it up.
- What you are looking to see is a Green light and a vibration to show it read the starter doc and it is on the right PRESET channel.
- If the tracker can show a green light and vibrate - it will start and show on the screen.
Red / Green lights on trackers that do not start
- If a tracker shows a red and green light when touched to a starter dock, it does not know which PRESET Channel it is supposed to be operating on.
- Associating the tracker will either work and it will start, or you do this 4 to 6 times and it will never go green and vibrate and needs to be fixed.
Summary
- Working trackers will show a red light when on the charger, have a pulsing yellow LRS Logo when taken off the charger / in use.
- Trackers never go to sleep, so make sure they are always a good 6 inches away from clearing docks/pads and starting docks
- 5 or 6 trackers sitting too close to a starter or clearing unit for 10 minutes will crash the system. Hundreds of clearing requests will be sent to the Tracker PC per minute and if clearing the orders, you will never see the communications that will crash your system.
- Trackers will show a green light and vibrate when touched to a starter dock, and then show up on the screen for the order.
- Tracker Start docks should never be thrown away or taken completely out of use. At least put them in the office for later troubleshooting as needed. More info below.
- The Start docks are used to associate the trackers you have, or have received recently to your system.
Associate the trackers
Ready to associate the trackers.
- Use the Starter dock(s) - as they are programmed to the Zigbee Preset (Network Channel)
- Run all trackers across the starter dock - might have to run each one 3- 5 times
- You want to see the trackers can show a green light and vibrate against the starter - then it will show on the screen.
- Sometimes this is tedious and time consuming – and very good news if it works.
To verify a non-working Tracker and ensure it's not a charge issue, we recommend verifying the charging base is properly attached to its power supply, and then placing the Tracker on charge full 12-hour period before testing again. If after that time the Tracker continues to behave abnormally, please submit a Support ticket and we may assist you.