Electron - LED alternating between red and yellow [SOLVED- PEBKAC]

Troubleshooting
1

I just unboxed my second Electron and set it up and am experiencing an issue:

On power-up it will connect to the cloud fine (breathing cyan), after about five minutes it will turn solid green for about a minute, then alternate between red and yellow (changing every second or so) and stay that way. About three feet away, another electron is running identical firmware without issue.

I have tried dfu updating, and reflashing firmware with CLI, I have also tried CLI key doctor- none have changed the behavior.

TLDR: Electron- Breathes cyan for ~5 min on reset -> solid green for ~ 1min -> red (1 sec), yellow (1 sec) repeat red->yellow forever

EDIT: GIF link of red/yellow pattern in action: https://giphy.com/gifs/t7iw3eaui9BV6

EDIT: Nevermind, it was my code causing it.

2

That’s not an expected color sequence. Perhaps try swapping batteries?

4

@mdma- I swapped the battery and usb+charger from a working Electron, and after about 20 minutes, the same thing happened again- flashing between red and yellow at about 1Hz. The other Electron (that I swapped charger/battery from) is still working fine, so it doesn’t appear to be the battery or charger.

5

Please try Safe Mode and see if it does the same thing after 5 minutes.

If not I would suspect it’s running some other firmware besides Tinker.

If you put the Electron in Listening Mode and run this command you can get a good idea of what firmware is on the device:

particle serial inspect

We can also read out the flash memory and see what’s on the electron if need be.

6

@BDub- the Electron is running my firmware, not Tinker- same firmware as the working Electron sitting next to it.

7

Would you please share your source? Do you control the RGB led at all?

8

SIGH

Thanks for the push in the right direction, @BDub- a bit of code my code was indeed being called, I was testing on a breadboard instead of in my PCB, so a pin was left floating. Stupid me.

Thanks folks!

1 Like
9

No worries, it happens to everyone! Glad to see you unblocked :wink: