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Volusia County October 9th Election Material Failure Report

While Charlie Conrad and I were in Volusia County for the Nov. 6th election, we examined the materials that had failed during the Oct. 9th election.  Below is a report of those failures.  I'll email the Nov. 6th material failure list early next week.  A report containing the info below and the Nov. 6th info will also be faxed to the Volusia County Election Director (Deanie Lowe).
 
Warning:  The answers for the memory card errors experienced on Volusia County's infra-red machines do NOT apply for similar errors that you might have experienced with visible light machines.  The conditions that existed in the infra-red units have not been proven to affect visible light units.  In other words, we still need to find the answers for visible light unit memory card errors.
 
BTW:  Word should go out through Support to existing infra-red customers, re-iterating the importance of have good charged power supply batteries in their units.  The recommended test for determining if a battery can hold its charge is to successfully print two to three diagnostic printer tests using only battery power and without a "battery low" message being displayed or, obviously, without the unit dying.  Of course, the battery charge would then have to be topped up after the test, but at least it will be known that the battery is capable of holding its charge.  Just plugging a unit in overnight and running a small test deck through it in the morning is not sufficient.
 
Ian
 
 
1. October 9, 2001 election. 
Precinct 815 wouldn't upload to VTS.  VTS generates "Already uploaded error." 
a) VTS:  The audit log reports that an upload started for Precinct 815 but it never reports that it completed.  Examination of AV-OS unit (SN 70598) found that the modem serial port test failed.  Obviously the modem worked well enough to allow VTS to initialize communications and report that the upload had started, but the modem must have failed during data transmission before the transmission was completed.  The audit log also showed that VTS rejected subsequent upload attempts, reporting that the precinct had already been uploaded. 
 
Tab has confirmed that although VTS shouldn't flag the precinct as "uploaded" until it is actually complete, there is a possibility that this could happen.  
 
b) AV-OS Modem:  It was found that the ribbon cable connector on the modem serial interface did not have sufficient height to contact the locking levers on the CPU Board header.  The modem connectors were reseated and the modem passed subsequent tests.
 
The ribbon cable connector for the modem serial interface requires a strain relief to be added to the connector to increase the height of the connector so the locking levers of the CPU board header make contact with the top of the connector to hold it in place.  A modem serial interface using ribbon cable was only required for the older "2400" modems.  The 14.4K modems required a different cable that has a full height connector.
2. October 9, 2001 election. 
On opening the polls, three (3) units printed the top half of the asterisks (first line of characters in a report header) and continued to do so approximately every half minute.  (AV-OS SN 70564, 70660, 70673)
The battery was either dead or low on these units.  Testing on each unit repeated the error described.  When a unit was powered up in the election mode, a zero totals report was supposed to be generated.  In an infra-red AV-OS, the printer needs to draw power from a charged battery to operate.  With a dead or low battery, the printer only printed three dot lines (the top half of the asterisks that are printed at the beginning of a label header) before it dragged the logic power down to a level that triggered a reset (4.75Vdc.)  The AV-OS reset and tried to generate another zero totals report, but the printer again dragged the logic power down to the reset trigger level, starting this cycle again.  In the midst of these resets, SN 70660 also experienced an "OK to reformat this card?" error which occurred as a result of the above condition.
 
The infra-red units require a charged power supply ("PS") battery to allow printing to occur.  Expected sealed lead acid battery life is five years.  Most of the failed PS batteries are five to six years old.  Others may have been damaged by discharging to a flat condition.
3.  October 9, 2001 election. 
On opening the polls, the AV-OS unit reports "Memory Card Removed - System Halted".  (AV-OS SN 70560)
The battery was dead on this unit.  Testing the unit repeated the error described.  When the unit was powered up in the election mode, a zero totals report was supposed to be generated.  In an infra-red AV-OS, the printer needs to draw power from a charged battery to operate.  With a dead battery, the printer dragged the logic power down to a level that triggered a reset (4.75Vdc) and affected the signal lines on the memory card interface.  In the midst of this logic power brown-out, the AV-OS CPU lost the signals that indicates a memory card is installed and halted the system as it is meant to if it believes that a memory card has been removed.  
 
The infra-red units require a charged PS battery to allow printing to occur.  Expected sealed lead acid battery life is five years.  Most of the failed PS batteries are five to six years old.  Others may have been damaged by discharging to a flat condition.
4.  October 9, 2001 election. 
On opening the polls, the AV-OS unit prints "memory card error".  (AV-OS SN 70589)
The battery was dead on this unit.  When the unit was powered up in the election mode, a zero totals report was supposed to be generated.  In an infra-red AV-OS, the printer needs to draw power from a charged battery to operate.  With a dead battery, the printer dragged the logic power down to a level that triggered a reset (4.75Vdc) and affected the signal lines on the memory card interface.  In the midst of this logic power brown-out, the AV-OS CPU determined there was a memory card failure and printed that message to the paper tape. 
 
The infra-red units require a charged PS battery to allow printing to occur.  Expected sealed lead acid battery life is five years.  Most of the failed PS batteries are five to six years old.  Others may have been damaged by discharging to a flat condition.
5.  October 9, 2001 election. 
On opening the polls, the AV-OS unit reports "I Install memory card".  Note the extra "I" at the beginning of the message.  (AV_OS SN 70536)
The battery was dead on this unit.  When the unit was powered up in the election mode, a zero totals report was supposed to be generated.  In an infra-red AV-OS, the printer needs to draw power from a charged battery to operate.  With a dead battery, the printer dragged the logic power down to a level that triggered a reset (4.75Vdc) and affected the signal lines on the memory card interface.  In the midst of this logic power brown-out, the AV-OS CPU lost the signals that indicate a memory card was inserted and displayed the message "Install memory card".  The extra "I" in the displayed message indicates that the message data was also affected by this logic power brown-out. 
 
The infra-red units require a charged PS battery to allow printing to occur.  Expected sealed lead acid battery life is five years.  Most of the failed PS batteries are five to six years old.  Others may have been damaged by discharging to a flat condition.
6.  October 9, 2001 election. 
Memory card is difficult to insert.  (AV-OS SN 74439)
The memory card cover mounted on the CPU board was squeezing the memory card connector.  This was due to interference of the memory card cover with tabs on the sides of the memory card connector that were improperly trimmed from the connector. 
 
After trimming the tabs correctly, the interference was no longer present. 
7.  October 9, 2001 election. 
Printer prints squashed lines.  (AV-OS SN 73888)
The front edge of the paper roll holder was binding against the paper roll, stalling the paper feed in the printer mechanism.  The paper roll was only 2-1/8" in outside diameter.  Inside diameter was 7/16".  The paper roll was in spec.
 
The paper roll holder needs to be replaced.
8.  October 9, 2001 election. 
(21) Memory card failures.  (10) new 128KB (non-shuttered) and (11) older 32KB (shuttered).
Dirty contacts on the memory cards were the cause of the errors.  All of the errors were repeatable.  The material on the contacts appeared to be thin films of adhesive residue.  When the contacts were cleaned, the memory cards passed all tests.  This was found on both 32KB cards (shuttered) and 128KB cards (non-shuttered.)  One 32KB card was found to have lost the springs in its shutter mechanism which caused its failure.  Three (3) of the new 128KB cards (non-shuttered) had the cover labels improperly installed. 
 
A method has to be determined for the customer to clean the memory card contacts without compromising the memory card.  The 32KB memory card without the shutter springs will be replaced.  The three (3) 128KB memory cards with the improper cover labeling will be replaced.
9.  October 9, 2001 election. 
Repeatedly started and stopped.  (AV-OS 74450)
The unit printed non-uniform squashed lines of text.  The front edge of the paper roll holder was binding against the paper roll, stalling the paper feed in the printer mechanism.  It was found that the paper roll was an 1/8" larger than the maximum paper roll outside diameter specification of 2-1/4". 
 
After reducing the diameter of the paper roll, the system printed text in the correct format.