Compact FLASH III Digital Audio System
Copyright©1992-2010 by ACS, Sarasota, Florida
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Q. When I try to use a Kingston CF Card, the CFSound-III Flashes the RED Error light once every six
seconds ?:
Kingston has manufactured a batch of CF cards that are not 100% compatible with the CF card standard.
While they may work in your PC, the CFSound-III uses a memory mapped mode of operation. Kingston CF
cards that were manufactured using a SMIC controller chip have a bug in their firmware when attempting to
operate in this mode. Kingston is aware of the problem and should refund your money.
We have asked both Kingston and SMIC for technical information on this incompatibility, and they have
chosen to not respond.
Q. We have a client who has a specific need -- an interval timer function. They want their very short
message to go off every 30 minutes (not seconds). Does your equipment have a provision for an interval
timer ?:
By placing a file named CFSOUND.INI on the compact flash card along with your sound files, you can
control several operating features of the unit.
For your application the following entry would provide the 30 minute delay between the background sound:
[Background]
BackgroundDelay=1800
This .INI file option sets the delay in seconds between background sound play-outs to the decimal value of
1800 seconds (30 minutes). The default is 0 seconds (no delay). This is not a high-resolution timer and may
be affected by other sounds playing while the timer is active. The specified time is between background sound
starts.
Q. We need to have a light associated with an individual "message initiate" momentary switch when
that message is playing. Do we need only the Contact I/O 8 module, or do we also need the Contact
Sense 8 ?:
The Contact I/O 8 has 8 contact sense inputs and 8 contact outputs. The Contact Sense 8 has 8 contact sense
inputs and the Contact Sense 24 has 24 contact sense inputs. The CFSound-III revision 2 can accept one I/O
module, the CFSound-III revision 3 can accept two I/O modules.
Q. I ordered an enclosed CFSound-III, and no volume control knob was installed/received ?:
We do not ship a volume knob with the CFSound-III, since the volume may be adjusted by pushbuttons on
the front of the unit.
Q. When wiring the power supply connector to the supplied power supply, which side is plus and
which side is ground ?:
Please see the MAIN connector description earlier in the manual for correct power supply wiring.
Q. Will it finish playing the current file even if another input is tripped half way through the file ?:
If you add an "N" in the filenames of your files, it marks the files as non-interruptible. Then setting
SaveNIContacts= TRUE in the [CONTACTS] section of the ini file, will cause the contact closure during
play out of the Non-Interruptible file to be saved until it completes playing.
Q. How long does it take the CFSound-III to power-up and be ready to play sounds ?:
The unit must either scan the card upon power-up, or scan the card every time a sound is initiated. We
opted to scan the card upon power-up to enable each sound to be played quicker. Many of the delays upon
power-up are due to having to support the variety of Compact Flash cards on the market - some of which
require several seconds upon power-up before they are accessible. The firmware is designed to accommodate
the worst case card, and we've had to slow it down in production as people encountered problems with
various cards that couldn't be read. There is no firmware modification available that will shorten this delay. A
freshly formatted small card with a limited number of sounds will scan the fastest. We have measured this
delay at 5-15 seconds.
