Electron stopped working?

Troubleshooting
1

My particle Electron board was sealed up inside the box that came with the solar kit and it WAS working. Today I decided to try to write some code for it and I was not able to upload the code. I could see inside the box that the RGB led was not lit up, but the blue D7 led was on solid. I took it out of the box and attempted to flash it over USB. When I plug it in with the USB cable, the red led starts to blink rapidly. I am not able to get it into DFU mode or do anything at all really.

Here is a video of it connected to the USB port on my computer. I try pressing all the buttons, both buttons at the same time, etc. and I get no change in behavior.

2

The rapid flashing red LED just means there is not battery connected.

The only thing I know how to do to reset the device is to hold down both buttons and then release the Reset button while holding the mode button down until the LED starts flashing magenta and then release the mode button and the device should start up in safe mode.

the thread below is all I have read about fixing a bricked Electron:

Pasted image818Ă—381 28.5 KB

Does plugging in the battery help any?

That’s about all I can offer in the way of help.

3

It still does not work.

4

Looks dead to me.

Have you tried that with the board pulled out of the bread board?

Also does the red LED turn on when you first started charging the battery?

Check the battery voltage just for the hell of it.

5

The battery is at 4.1VDC
I’ve tried it without the breadboard. The red LED does turn on when it is charging. The computer sees nothing connected to USB.

6

I’m not sure who to email for a replacement but I’m pretty sure that’s what you need.

Maybe @corey or @clarissa can help ya out.

7

@jgarland79, can you hold on the MODE button and plug in a USB cable?

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8

Are you still seeing the same issues with this device?

I may have to get on a quick video chat this week to unblock you.

  • Corey @ Particle
9

Yes I am. Now I have two dead Electrons and now I’m all out of them. I replaced the Electron in the solar kit with another. Now that one is also dead. Is the solar kit killing these boards? It seems to happen if you let the battery run dead.

10

Hi @jgarland79

I am not sure this will help but during the beta if we had power problems, I would tie the RST pin to GND (forcing the Electron to be continuously reset) and then connect it to a known good source of USB power (good adapter, laptop, hub, etc.) and let it charge the battery for a long time, like overnight. Then remove the jumper between RST and GND and let the Electron try to start-up again.

You might want to try something like that.

11

Here is everything I’ve tried.

With the Electron plugged into nothing else and the battery is fully charged and my meter reads 4.1VDC from the battery.

  1. Hold mode button and plug in battery. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. RGB led remains off.
  2. Hold reset button and plug in battery. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. RGB led remains off.
  3. Hold mode and reset button and plug in battery. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. RGB led remains off.
  4. Hold mode button and plug in USB power with battery disconnected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led blinks rapidly. RGB led remains off.
  5. Hold reset button and plug in USB power with battery disconnected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led blinks rapidly. RGB led remains off.
  6. Hold mode and reset button and plug in USB power with battery disconnected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led blinks rapidly. RGB led remains off.
  7. Hold mode button and plug in USB power with battery connected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led lights up when USB cable is plugged in. RGB led remains off.
  8. Hold reset button and plug in USB power with battery connected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led lights up when USB cable is plugged in. RGB led remains off.
  9. Hold mode and reset button and plug in USB power with battery connected. Results: Blue D7 led remains constantly lit. Red led lights up when USB cable is plugged in. RGB led remains off.
12

@bko Thank you. Trying that now with one of the boards.

13

If the Blue D7 LED is on dimly and the RGB LED never lights up, I think you are in the “no firmware” state and will need a JTAG programmer to get out of it.

It sounds like @corey can help you best in that case.

14

Ordering this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/381237466793

and 30 days later when it arrives from China and I’ve lost interest in the Particle Electron because it failed me so miserably, I will probably stuff it into a drawer. :frowning:

But just in case I decide to actually try JTAG flashing these things I’ll leave this link here for my own reference. Connections for ST-Link v2 mini JTAG

15

If anyone wants to try and reproduce this issue just plug your Electron into the solar shield and move to Seattle(Or just put it in dark room for ~1.5 days). So far it has a 100% success rate with the two Electron boards I’ve plugged into the shield.

17

Hey,

Can you share the code you had running on that Electron to make sure there isn’t an error from the application side of things? (This can be privately shared)
We’re willing to send you a programmer shield to get this debugged and figure out the root cause of this issue. Feel free to respond here or in a private message - whatever suits you best!

Talk to you soon,
Corey @ Particle

18

One was running this and it was working fine for over a day until the battery went dead. The other one was running one of the examples and was also working fine until the battery went dead.

FuelGauge fuel;

CellularSignal sig = Cellular.RSSI();

float VCell = 0;
float SoC = 0;
int sig_rssi = 0;
int sig_qual = 0;


#define pirPin D2

void setup() {

  pinMode(pirPin, INPUT);

/*
  Serial.println( fuel.getVCell() );
  Serial.println( fuel.getSoC() );
  
  Serial.println(sig.rssi);
  Serial.println(sig.qual);
*/

  //pinMode(D5, INPUT_PULLUP);

  Particle.variable("VCell", VCell);
  Particle.variable("SoC", SoC);
  Particle.variable("sig_rssi", sig_rssi);
  Particle.variable("sig_qual", sig_qual);

}

void loop() {

  if(digitalRead(pirPin) == HIGH){
      Particle.publish("m");
      while(digitalRead(pirPin) == HIGH){
        delay(50);
      }
  }


  VCell = fuel.getVCell();
  sig = Cellular.RSSI();
  SoC = fuel.getSoC();
  sig_rssi = sig.rssi;
  sig_qual = sig.qual;

  //delay(2000);

}
19

Sorry to hear of these troubles. Do you still have at least one functioning device available. like another electron, or a photon or core?

20

I have the same problem and tried everything! Nothing works. I never saw the led blinking or even lighting. Only the D7 led is blue and futher it is dead!

I have two new photons to use for a solution!

How can help me! I sent already two request to support. No answer.

21

It sounds like the bootloader has been erased somehow. It’s possible to reprogram it using a photon and a few jumpers. We hope to make a formal release of this in a few weeks (I’m on vacation now.) But you can get a sneak preview here - https://github.com/m-mcgowan/embedded-swd

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