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Diagnosing your Canute 360
We hope you are enjoying your Canute 360. However if you are on this page then you may be having errors, and we're sorry to hear that.
Please read through the following instructions and decide how practical it is for you to run these tests. They not only help us diagnose your Canute's issues, but are very helpful information for the team back in Bristol Braille.
Please do as many or as few of the tests as you are able and willing to and we will use this information to make a remote assessment of your Canute.
It will be very helpful to help us diagnose these errors (incidents of incorrect dot patterns) if you can follow as much of the following process as is practical for you.
Please email any questions to [email protected] or call +44117 325 3022.
You will need a way of taking down notes on the line and column of the errors when they occur. We suggest slate and stylus, pen and paper or dictating it to a mobile phone, whatever you are fastest with.
First thing to note is that errors are more likely to occur when the machine is 'cold', i.e. recently turned on, especially if the room itself is cold.
Therefore for the purpose of this diagnosis please turn the machine on and leave it be for twenty minutes before following the steps below.
This test is to find out if any cells are not being correctly reset to blank when they are meant to.
This bit requires fast hands! If it is too difficult to record the columns the errors occur in please just note which lines they occurred in, as this is still useful.
Please hold down the 'zero' button on the bottom left side of the display surface for one second. This will force a full page reset (during which time the display will make a noise and will vibrate as if it is turning on), then it will pause for a few seconds, then it will return to whatever was on the display previously.
The refresh happens one line at a time: the first line, then the second line and so on down to the ninth will go blank.
Whilst this line by line refresh is happening, check the cells on the lines which have already been blanked (i.e. wait a second then start running your hand across the first line, second and so on).
You should notice a totally blank set of lines (so long as you don't run ahead of the reset!)
If any of those blank lines have dots poking up, please make a note of where the error occurs.
You may find it necessary to keep one hand on the cell with an error whilst your other hand continues to look for other errors further down the display.
If you notice an entire column of dots not being blank though that should be very easy to record. Keep your hand on it and, once the refresh has finished, count across from the left with your other hand. Now please make a note of the column which has failed.
If you have individual cell errors and cannot record their location fast enough, don't worry. Just let us know how many you found and, if at all possible, what lines they fell on.
Please repeat this test at least three times. You can do it more if you think you might have missed an error. Please leave a minute between rerunning the test though, as the reset can make the Canute warm to the touch if run non-stop.
You only need to do this test if you spotted errors during the first test. Otherwise skip straight to test no.3.
The purpose of this test is to bring out more errors during reset so it is easier to see repeat offenders.
Prop the right hand side of the Canute up by between 3" and 5" (it doesn't matter about the precise height, just be careful it is stable). A few hard-back books, a Tupperware box or a brief-case would be perfect for this.
Now repeat all the steps from the first test, but with Canute at this angle.
The Canute is only designed to be used on a roughly flat surface, so errors in these results aren't indicative of hardware faults which will interfere with reading.
However you are likely to see more errors on the left hand sides of cells and noting these down will help us diagnose your machine.
This test is designed to find out if individual cells go wrong during normal operation, for example if they stick during operation and therefore come up with the wrong pattern.
This test can be done at your own pace; no fast hands needed.
Please go to the library menu and select 'for cleaning and testing'. This will load a series of pages where every cell is identical.
Run your hands over each page to check for incorrect half cells (which are not identical to the rest of the pattern).
Please note that you are looking for both dots stuck up and dots that should have come up but didn't.
Do this for every page in the file, taking as long as you need to check for errors before moving to the next page.
It is helpful to run through all the pages again backwards to the start, to see if the same cells has errors in the same places.
This final test can be quite difficult to get results from.
We are looking for examples of errors during reading real Braille books. It is therefore very helpful if you pick some books or documents you actually want to read and noting down every time you spotted an error whilst reading them, including the column, line and the page number.
You may want to keep your notes handy and do this test casually as you are reading normally for work or pleasure over a period of days.
Or you could opt to sit down and do it especially for the test with one sitting.
When you spot an error count the column, line and the Canute page number. Find the Canute page number by pressing the 'menu' button and reading the top right hand side of the display, next to the title of the file. Then press the menu button again.
It is entirely up to you how many pages you are prepared to read through for this test.
Caveat emptor: Every substantial book will have a transcription error or author's mis-spelling somewhere. Therefore please use your judgement and only note down those errors you are confident are purely the Canute's fault.
If the same cell is totally fine on other pages but always shows an error on that page it is almost certainly an error in the source file rather than the Canute.
If on the other hand the error stays in the same place over multiple pages then it is far more likely to be the Canute itself at fault.
If possible please email a copy of the BRF or PEF file you were reading.
As we said at the start, we don't expect everyone to be able to complete this whole battery of tests. Any tests you are able to do will be a great help in diagnosing errors you are having.
If you don't have much time please do just a few tests but take care to write careful notes.
Please send your resulting notes to the email address for Bristol Braille listed above.
We should also note that as you have one of the very first commercially available multi-line Braille displays your feedback will be directly informing the manufacture, design and programming of this new technology. Thank you!
Yours sincerely
The Bristol Braille Team