Touch Panels still "touchy"

Had a little time on my hand today, so tested out both my touch panels today. 

A detailed discussion on various causes of the malfunction is under progress on VRS forums. 

I thank Glenn "Tripod" for all the help, support and guidance. 

I also thank Al 'Otto' Rosenberg for his unsolicited offer of assistance. That was a very nice gesture from my FSX 'Guru'.

For the sake of brevity, I will cut the long story short.

Tripod was convinced that the problem on my 'test rig' is related to USB bus being underpowered. I tended to agree with him and have therefore already ordered a 'Belkin 7 port powered USB hub'.

Since, the powered USB hub will take a week to arrive, I decided to test out BOTH the touch panels simultaneously.

Connected my 21" monitor to the 3 X 23" monitor test rig, setup both the touch panels (one by one individually).
Windows detected both the panels, the controlling software also installed without any hitch.

Ran some tests on both the panels, including calibrating the panels (4 point calibration and 26 point linear calibration). All tests worked nicely. 

To rule out 'USB power issues', I ran the panels while connected to the USB port in front of the computer, then in the rear of computer and then also through a unpowered USB hub. They work quite fine when connected to any USB port.

For the sake of test, I then removed the extra 21" monitor. And as expected, the driver failed to initialize.

"Touched Panel"

Fixed the touch panel.

Tripod (from VRS Forums) provided me with extensive checklist to systematically debug this issue.

I chose the easiest and most likely problem resolution, and installed the 10.1" touch panel on my 15.1" monitor laptop (Dell XPS M1530).

The panel worked like a charm. I was able to calibrate the panel (4 point calibration and 25 point linear calibration) and it did everything that was advertised. The sensitivity of the panel is still a bit buggy, but that is something I will be able to tweak, as I dig deeper. 

Like I had originally suspected, the problem is most likely due to 'Virtual Display Adaptor' installed by Triple Head 2 Go for my 3 screen test setup. The virtual display adaptor combines the individual resolutions of all of my three monitors to provide one single monitor of 3 x 1920 x 1080 = 5670 x 1080 resolution. Most likely the driver for touch controller is not able to 'handle' such a large resolution and quits on me.

When I connect the other single monitors to my test setup, I am now confident that my touch panel should work. 

Thank you Tripod, for the leads you provided.

I'm happy that the panel now works.

On a secondary note, the vendor from whom I had purchased my multi-monitor stand, has fabricated a set of extension plates. Received those extension plates today. Will assemble the stand later in the day and test.

Adaptor for multi-monitor stand - for me to be able to accommodate 3 x 23" screens on the stand

"Touchy Panel"

8.1" Touch Panel (along with touch controller, extender patch cord and USB extender cord

Both my touch panels arrived a couple of days back. 

Luckily, both of them arrived in good shape this time (no chips, nicks, cracks or broken connectors this time). The package contained the driver CD also. 

Assembled them immediately and connected them to my test rig. For some reason, my Windows 7 (64 Bit) is not able to recognize the touch panel controller device. 

After extensive googling around for last two days, and not making any further headway, I have now requested folks at VRS forums for assistance. 

The panels came with drivers from EGalax (5000 series). These are the most popular generic touch panel drivers. Also tested them with newer Touch Kit drivers. But, the operating system still doesn't recognize my USB device.

My test rig is presently setup with 3 x 23" monitors (other monitors are removed for the time being). All three monitors are fed off a Triple Head 2 Go through DVI input/output. With each monitor setup at 1920 x 1080 resolution, I am setup for a total desktop area of 5760 x 1080 (on a single virtual display adaptor). 

I'm thinking, this extended display resolution is probably conflicting with the touch controller driver. 

Over the coming weeks, time is at a bit of premium. 

Need to find a way to get my panels to work!