Reuse sim Card from old to new Electron

Troubleshooting
1

I had an electron go bad (It gets hot fast and shuts off) I want to still use the same sim card but apparently I can’t just put it in the new electron. This didn’t quite work, It connects, but does not have a name. What else do I need to do?

2

Let me ping someone that might be able to help, @rickkas7 or @ParticleD are you able to assist?

3

You can use your old Electron SIM card, you just need to claim and name your Electron manually.

Electrons and SIM cards are not tied to each other, and in fact you can swap Particle SIM cards between Electrons without any reconfiguration on device or in the cloud. You can simply remove the SIM card from your old Electron and put it in your new Electron. You do need to claim the new Electron to your account, however.

The normal sequence on the status LED is: white, blinking green, blinking cyan (light blue), fast blinking cyan, and finally breathing cyan. Make sure you can get to breathing cyan, as you cannot claim a device unless it is breathing cyan.

Using existing SIM card - Method 1

If you have not done so already, please install the Particle CLI. The command line utilities are useful not only for solving this problem but will be valuable later on, as well.

https://docs.particle.io/guide/tools-and-features/cli

If you are using Windows, be sure to use the link to Windows CLI Installer that will automatically install all of the components instead of the more complicated manual install.

Put the Electron into Listening mode (blinking blue) by holding down SETUP until it blinks blue. Then issue the CLI command:

particle identify

Save the Device ID; you’ll need it next.

Reset the Electron and wait for it to breathe cyan. The next step won’t succeed until it’s breathing cyan. Then issue the command:

particle device add YOUR_DEVICE_ID

And optionally rename it:

particle device rename YOUR_DEVICE_ID "newname"

Using existing SIM card - Method 2

If you don’t want to install the CLI now, you can use one of the techniques in this document for finding your device ID:

https://docs.particle.io/faq/particle-devices/finding-device-id/electron/

Once you know it, you can go to https://build.particle.io. Select the Devices icon (circle with 4 lines) and use the Add Device link to add the device. The Photon must be in breathing cyan mode and then use the Device ID you obtained earlier and enter it into the box.

After adding it, you can click on the name in the device list to rename it.

4 Likes
4

Thanks that worked.