http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75 A place to share, learn, and grow... en-US Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:11:59 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://forums.leaflabs.com/search.php http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75&page=2#post-482 Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:42:11 +0000 poslathian 482@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>I wonder if this isnt actually related to the buttons. We manually swapped out alot of buttons that were damaged during reflow. Our test procedure on this was effectively mash them 20 times and make sure they worked properly. However, if the boot BUT was faulty, for whatever reason, its possible that reseting would cause the light to halt, not turn on, or do other weird things as you accidentally cycled through the serial bootloader and perpetual bootloader modes. Perhaps the power stuff was just coincidental and not causal. </p> <p>Just a random shot in the dark. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75&page=2#post-466 Sun, 04 Jul 2010 08:31:34 +0000 leaflabsandy 466@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Quote: "We have a test setup to test every board before they go out, and we're interested in finding more weirdos to test for."</p> <p>Answer: I must be the only person that had this wierd problem? &lt;--- this is good to know.</p> <p>Quote: Correct me if I'm inaccurate. I'm assuming you checked that the voltage at VCC was correct.</p> <p>Answer: I just measured the header VCC and gnd - it was OK for the battery, barrel connector inputs.</p> <p>Quote: "Did you check anything else? Was the clock running? </p> <p>Answer: No, and how can I tell if the clock was running? The blinky program should<br /> indicate if the clock was running.</p> <p>Quote: "Did you check power consumption?" </p> <p>Answer: No</p> <p>Quote: "You mentioned that the chip "wouldn't reset". Was the chip starting up...did the blue LED blink, like normal, at startup if you power cycled?"</p> <p>Answer: In all cases on external power with only one jumper, the blue light would always cycle, on startup, then stop.<br /> By pressing the reset to restart the ARM the blue light would stay on constantly.<br /> Note: My program, on the Maple, was a 50ms blue blinky program.</p> <p>Hope this helps. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-462 Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:06:49 +0000 okie 462@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>leaflabsandy, good work. I'm glad you're digging deeper into the issue. It's both troublesome and perhaps the epitome of interesting when things change right under our purposefully observant nose, eyes, wave sensors, and we're left with an incomplete story, even if the change that occurs is central to the reason for investigation.</p> <p>I'm not too impressed with the PCB assembly of Maple. We have a test setup to test every board before they go out, and we're interested in finding more weirdos to test for. I still cannot think of a reasonable explanation of how a Maple might work with USB power but not external power and then after washing it with alcohol to maybe remove some excess flux, the problem goes away. None of our hypotheses are compelling. I have some more questions about what you mean by "when it wasn't working with external power". Correct me if I'm inaccurate. I'm assuming you checked that the voltage at VCC was correct. Did you check anything else? Was the clock running? Did you check power consumption? You mentioned that the chip "wouldn't reset". Was the chip starting up...did the blue LED blink, like normal, at startup if you power cycled? what was the state of the reset pin...did it actually get pulled up and down by the button? </p> <p>I just tried a 9V external supply with USB and both USB and EXT power jumpers connected...seemed to work fine. Don't try to shoot me. I probably have more rounds (17) than you:<br /> <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/okieglock.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/okieglock.jpg</a></p> <p>I can't think of any short or capacitance due to flux causing this problem unless something was shorted to the power trace connecting the external power jack to the power selection header or to VIN. I'm basing this on what I know about the whole system. I know the circuit and layout well and have a very general idea of how the USB bootloader and serial stuff works. My main angle of attack with this problem assumes the legitimacy of the following scenario if our Maple boards and softwares are the same versions (I'm using Maple r3 and :<br /> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br /> If we're both able to compile and upload the same sketch that you posted, then if we then unplug the USB cable, plug in 9VDC to EXT power, switch the power jumper from USB to EXT, and press the reset button, then our boards should behave the same regardless of what operating system we're using. </p> <p>It's kind of fun to try random things and look for "stuff", so i just did it for a couple minutes. i started connecting the reset pin to the resistors, caps, and transistors behind the USB port and to VIN and the protection diode terminals and any metal exposed in the vicinity through a 3.3k resistor and then pressing the reset button and watching the blinking LED start-up sequence. /Sometimes/, or about one in every 5 times i press the reset button when i'm connecting the resistor from the reset pin to the right pad of one of the four lower resistors behind the USB connector (R8,R9,R10,R12), the first blink of the blue LED is several times longer than usual. &lt;/garbage&gt;</p> <p>&lt;garbage&gt;<br /> "You need TWO JUMPERS INSTALLED TO MAKE IT WORK WITH EXTERNAL POWER!!!!"<br /> &lt;/garbage&gt;</p> <p>I wonder if someone is going to come across this forum thread one day and think this is "a regular ole' general fact of life" when it really only used to happen sometimes on leaflabsandy's bench.</p> <p>Your data volume is very much appreciated. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only Maple with this power supply problem that magically disappeared. I say "magically" because we have neither a reasonable testable hypothesis on what was/is causing the problem nor enough data or a Maple that fails in this manner to explore it. Did you capture any images with your USB microscope that show the flux you removed? I have not seen a problem with excess flux on other boards. Believe it or not, I am going to apply a hefty amount of flux to the parts of the circuit you mentioned and others, but I think there's a very small chance of reproducing these things because I haven't seen this problem on any boards and no one can think of a way this kind of behavior could be caused by flux...or anything for that matter. </p> <p>Happy 4th of July! </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-452 Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:26:38 +0000 leaflabsandy 452@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Okie ... FYI - I was going to send it back but looking carefully<br /> at the board with a USB microscope, I detected flux residue so, I<br /> taped off the two tac switches and got a small bristol brush and<br /> some 91% Isopropyl alcohol to clean the board. So far it is working<br /> off of external power? - very strange? - more testing on going.<br /> Note: The greatest density of flux was just behind the USB connector<br /> on the row of resistors and other components. Hope this helps. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-404 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:47:13 +0000 jessb 404@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>damn straight *brandishes .44 magnum* ;) </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-403 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:03:42 +0000 leaflabsandy 403@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>If you think that was funny check this link out on the Arduino forum about the Maple ...<br /> <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1274652722/all" rel="nofollow">http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1274652722/all</a> </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-402 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:08:20 +0000 poslathian 402@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>hah! I definitely agree with that. That can is now an obliteratedly awesome pencil holder. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-401 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:30:12 +0000 leaflabsandy 401@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Jessb quote: "Just want to reiterate, please do not use the jumpers to select more than one power source (ie USB and EXT) at the same time... this puts you at a much greater risk of doing something that will "release the magic smoke"..."</p> <p>I totally agree ... never argue with a person with a gun in one hand and a beer can in the other. That is you in the picture "about the staff" Jess? </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-400 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:01:26 +0000 poslathian 400@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Thanks for the detailed info. Well try and recreate it! </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-399 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:12:10 +0000 leaflabsandy 399@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Words dear to my heart ...</p> <p>"In the meantime, regardless if SerialUSB is your problem, please know were rewriting this part of libmaple and will be pushing at update soon!" </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-398 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:23:54 +0000 leaflabsandy 398@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>I am using a 9 VDC power supply.</p> <p>When I transfer to ext (ext pwr jumper) from USB the blue light cycles briefy then stops. The reset tac switch forces the blue light on all the time?</p> <p>When I "backfeed" the USB (with the USB jumper) and the ext. pwr. everything works!<br /> eg the blue light cycles every 50 ms. Which means the program is running???</p> <p>The reset tac switch restarts the program execution everytime with the backfeed?<br /> The automatic "power on reset" works every time with the backfeed.</p> <p>Please Note: The blinky LED sketch works everytime under USB with only one jumper.<br /> I believe the problem is pointing to a software problem?</p> <p>BTW ... The only reason why I "backfed" the USB components (1.5 K volt divider) is ...<br /> I got desperate because I wanted the Maple to run on external power! With using<br /> only 9 VDC power supply (plus 2 volt drop across the diode) then I am safe. Using the max. of 18 volts will probably smoke the board! </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-397 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:19:01 +0000 leaflabsandy 397@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>--------<br /> Code &lt;--- uploaded code - notice the print statement commented out<br /> --------<br /> /* Blink without Delay</p> <p> Turns on and off a light emitting diode(LED) connected to a digital<br /> pin, without using the delay() function. This means that other code<br /> can run at the same time without being interrupted by the LED code.</p> <p> The circuit:<br /> * LED attached from pin 13 to ground.<br /> * Note: on most Arduinos, there is already an LED on the board<br /> that's attached to pin 13, so no hardware is needed for this example.</p> <p> created 2005<br /> by David A. Mellis<br /> modified 17 Jun 2009<br /> by Tom Igoe</p> <p> <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BlinkWithoutDelay" rel="nofollow">http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BlinkWithoutDelay</a><br /> */</p> <p>// constants won't change. Used here to<br /> // set pin numbers:<br /> const int ledPin = 13; // the number of the LED pin</p> <p>// Variables will change:<br /> int ledState = LOW; // ledState used to set the LED<br /> long previousMillis = 0; // will store last time LED was updated</p> <p>// the follow variables is a long because the time, measured in miliseconds,<br /> // will quickly become a bigger number than can be stored in an int.<br /> long interval = 50; // interval at which to blink (milliseconds)</p> <p>void setup() {<br /> // set the digital pin as output:<br /> pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);<br /> }</p> <p>void loop()<br /> {<br /> // here is where you'd put code that needs to be running all the time.</p> <p> // check to see if it's time to blink the LED; that is, is the difference<br /> // between the current time and last time we blinked the LED bigger than<br /> // the interval at which we want to blink the LED.<br /> if (millis() - previousMillis &gt; interval) {<br /> // save the last time you blinked the LED<br /> previousMillis = millis(); </p> <p> // if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:<br /> if (ledState == LOW)<br /> ledState = HIGH;<br /> else<br /> ledState = LOW;</p> <p> // set the LED with the ledState of the variable:<br /> digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);</p> <p> }<br /> //SerialUSB.println("Hello World!");<br /> } </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-396 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:51:23 +0000 jessb 396@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Just want to reiterate, please do not use the jumpers to select more than one power source (ie USB and EXT) at the same time... this puts you at a much greater risk of doing something that will "release the magic smoke"... </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-394 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:38:14 +0000 poslathian 394@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>you should not need a second jumper to power off of external supply. We manually replaced the power supplied off the external lines (at great cost) to ensure they would be rated to accept the advertised power ranges, and verified this (and once again after your post). Do you have any calls to SerialUSB.print in your code? It would seem, from the bug reports, that our handling of all things SerialUSB is just straight buggy, and were rewriting it, sorry about that! If you do have calls to SerialUSB than its almost certainly the case that when powering off external power, there is no active usb connection, which is causing SerialUSB to block...halting your program and preventing blinky. Please provide your exact sketch and setup and I'll be happy to hack on it and get this figured out for you. In the meantime, regardless if SerialUSB is your problem, please know were rewriting this part of libmaple and will be pushing at update soon! </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=75#post-391 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:40:50 +0000 leaflabsandy 391@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Danger ... folks at home do not apply more than 10 volts to the Maple and insert the USB jumper!!!! The 1.5K voltage divider would be more than 5 vdc which would put the input pin at its max voltage! This problem is looking more like a software problem?<br /> Wait for Maple to resolve this problem? </p>