OK – so I wake up this morning at 4 AM and cannot get back to sleep. I am mentally thinking through everything I have on my plate this weekend, and my head begins to spin. At this point, I realize that I have a golf game on Saturday morning, and I have not downloaded the course onto my SkyCaddie. This being a relatively new toy for me, I realize I need to get this done, because I will probably experience some sort of difficulty. . . . . .Murphy’s Law you know.
I haul myself out of bed and sit down in front of the computer to download the course. I am following all the instructions, click on the Direct Connect button on the SkyCaddie desktop, and the course should begin to download. . . . .Not.
If you do not have a SkyCaddie, the procedure is to go into the SkyCaddie Desktop software, log in, choose your courses and then download them. Your SkyCaddie must be hooked up to your computer via the USB port to accomplish this. I had everything hooked up, but got an error message stating “USB Device not Recognized”.
How could this be? It worked a few weeks ago when I downloaded courses for the first time. How could it not be working now? I cursed my laptop, to begin with. It is not a brand I normally use, so anything that goes wrong, I blame on the laptop brand. (No, I am not going to fess up to what brand it is).
Now, on the SkyCaddie SG4, the port on the SkyCaddie to plug it into power is really funky. Whoever designed or engineered this needs to be taken out to pasture and shot. Really.
See the port at the top of the picture? It has 6 tiny holes and one center hole. You place the power cord on top and try to fit the tiny prongs on the power cord into the matching holes, and then twist the connector until the connection is snug.
Apparently, if you connect the power cord upside down (as I did, because if you connect it right side up, the actual cord really gets in the way), the computer will not recognize the SkyCaddie. Hey, it fits both ways, and upside down is easier.
Anyway, to make a very long story short, if you connect it upside down, it will charge the battery, but will not communicate with the computer.
Once I reversed the connection, it magically worked and I now have the course downloaded. Hopefully my golf game will go better than my download experience.
SkyGolf. . . . please retire this type of connection.
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