SMART Board Gone Bonkers? Drawing Mode Stuck On

[JRA]

Good morning all,

 

Just hoping to draw on anyone's experience of these out in the wild, not seen any SMART boards in over 10 years but there was one this morning. And it was doing a thing.

 

Nothing glaringly wrong with it (no blutac on it etc) but had two black pens in the tray only, which is what it's always had apparently.

 

So, the thing is stuck on some sort of drawing mode. As in, teacher typing with keyboard and mouse can't select anything in Powerpoint, because this draws a little blob where they click. Moving the cursor with the mouse button held down just draws a squiggly line rather than moving or selecting text/things.

 

Unplugging the board and everything is fine, so something on the board itself that's gone bonkers. Somehow. I guess.

 

Anyone ever had this and if so how did you un-break it?

[LeMarchand]

How many pen "slots" are there? IIRC there used to be 4 + the eraser. If the slot is empty, it thinks the pen is in use so if there are no available pens you have to cover the sensor (at the bottom of the "slot" from memory) with Blutack or similar so that it thinks the slot is occupied. Could be that one of the blobs has come off.

 

Could also be something completely different!

[Rob_D]

We've had similar which was down to the Smart Ink overlay glitching out on Smart E70 screens. Force stopping ink from task manager (and letting it restart normally at next reboot) seemed to fix it for us.

If you mean one of the old SB600 style projector screens with the sensors in the pen trays (like the pic below), try cleaning the pen tray sensors and make sure there's something in every tray. As I recall, the SB600 used light sensors to tell if a pen was in the tray or "being used" so as long as whatever you use completely covers the sensor it should work.

[JRA]

Ahh memories! Yes I remember the Prit sticks etc in slots as pen emulators from back in the day. Takes me back...

 

We have slightly newer looking ones with all-in-one trays like this:

 

 

I'll see if aggressive restarts sort it, might also audition some other pens from elsewhere later on.

 

Cheers both.

[LeMarchand]

There's a ribbon cable that looks like it connects to the underside of the board. Might be worth checking the connection and/or condition.

 

 

If those are actually buttons, could one be stuck down?