Automatic USB Switch

[kinderhund]

OK, I'm grasping at straws here. I have multiple 3950's that I would like to sync to one PC. They are used by field personnel, and the only thing that needs to be sync'd is Access Databases. So there doesn't seem to be a problem with Activesync 3.7 allowing multiple relationships (I have 4 right now).

What I'd like to do is have the guys come in at the end of the day, plunk their PDA's into the cradles and go home, so they would sync overnight. I've tried hooking up 2 directly into the USB ports on the PC, and while the PC recognizes they were both cradled (there's a sound notification), only one will sync. Does there exist a hardware solution, some kind of USB hub with an automatic switch, that could switch from one to another every half hour or something? It would have to keep doing it a few times, since if there are 4 PDA's, each would have to sync 4 times to capture all the changes.

I guess another thought is, can I do the same thing with WiFi instead?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I'm drowning.....

-kinderhund
"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"-Macbeth

[Crazie.Eddie]

I'm not familiar with the 3950, but if it has built in Wi-Fi capabilities, why don't you create a simple program that will do the following:

1. Ping PPC1, if no reply, go to step 3
2. Copy database to PPC
3. Ping PPC2, if no reply, go to step 5
4. Copy database to PPC
5. Ping PPC3, if no reply, go to step 7
6. Copy database to PPC
7. Ping PPC4, if no reply, go to step 9
8. Copy database to PPC
9. Go to 1 (or program end)

If you have a Windows XP or Windows 2000 computer, you can assign a scheduled task to run at a specific time. And you can have that task end after 1 hour or whatever safe time you want to enter.

[kinderhund]

I'm not familiar with the 3950, but if it has built in Wi-Fi capabilities....

39xx don't have WiFi, however I do have a PC card expansion pack on the units, so could put a WiFi card in. And pretty quick here we're getting some 5xxx units, which do have WiFi.

Excellent suggestion! Thanks!

-kinderhund

[Steven Cedrone]

OK, I'm grasping at straws here. I have multiple 3950's that I would like to sync to one PC. They are used by field personnel, and the only thing that needs to be sync'd is Access Databases. So there doesn't seem to be a problem with Activesync 3.7 allowing multiple relationships (I have 4 right now).


You could try something like this... (http://www.mobileplanet.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=101&cat%5Fname=Pocket+PC+Devices&dept%5Fid=3705&pf%5Fid=MP920706&listing=1)

"iPAQ Multi-Slot (6) Ethernet
Dock, sync, and charge up to 6 iPAQ H38/3900 series Pocket PCs at once!"

More info here... (http://www.portsmith.com/products/cradles.shtml#ipaq)

"Compatible with Compaq iPAQ H3800/H3900/H5400/H5500 series"

Expensive though...

Steve

[Chris Spera]

Even if you could do this, ActiveSync will only allow 1 active connection at a time. Your program would have to drop device 1 before it would allow a connection with device 2.

As far as I know, you can only have 1 active instance of ActiveSync, too; so running ActiveSync multiple times on the same PC at the same time isn't going to work either...

This is an interesting problem. Please let us know how things work out...


Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

[Crazie.Eddie]

The multislot is cool, but it does limit you to the ActiveSync software. Maybe a server is possible, but I haven't done anything that large of a scale. Since you mentioned you need to sync the access database, I think my solution of pinging the PPCs, copying the file, etc. batch program should work, though it is rather crude.

You could probably enhance that by copying the DB only if it is newer. I could help you in creating the batch program if your not familiar.

Good luck.