BBB power led blinking, revived after several power button presses

Hi, How many time did you pressed the power button to get it on? did you only connect the 5vdc power supply or also the Usb cable to computer? I’m having the same issue
I tried what it says here: http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBone#Board_Does_Not_Power_On.2C_Power_LED_Flashes.5BAll_Revisions.5D
“When removing power, hold the reset button DOWN.” But I didnt manage to get it to work does the usb cable need to be connected to or only the 5dcv?

I also tried to flash it but it doesnt happens what it supposed to according to what it says here:http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:Updating_The_Software#Procedure

I tried the listed fixes and did not get anything to work.

I tried flashing, using different power sources. In the end, I decided to switch my system over to use a Rasp Pi 2. The BeagleBone is in a box and I do not plan on using it again.

Hope you figure something out! I just didn’t want to waste time trying to revive it.

The doctor I’m working with at the University declared it fried and gave me a white board, he degrade me :frowning:

I was testing the eQEP and I had divisor resistors protecting GPIO but he said because impedance, it fried the processor

I already burned down three of BBB, and now I totally give it up!

I have been having this same issue where the LED blinks once when 5V DC power is applied. I would have to plug and unplug the DC adapter pin, or press the power button several times before the LED holds steady and the BBB boots. No such problems if powered by USB.

I have been working with my local Element14 support folks to figure and we found the power adapter we were using with the BBB took about 30 secs to lose charge after powering it off. If I power off the DC adapter and wait 30 secs before powering it back on, the LED will hold steady and the BBB boots.

They are still investigating the issue but for now waiting 30 secs works for me.

Alvin

I have the same issue, already 3 boards has died.
any solution, i tried to use optoisolator/pwm and noting. the BBB is a bad board.

The flashing LED indicates excess current is being drawn by the processor. This can be related to damaged I/O pins or power supplies that are not well regulated…

Gerald

I now have 4 damaged or dead BBBs. On this last board (Element 14), I had only a stepper motor driver board connected (Pololu DRV8834), and nothing else. The DRV8834 was initially drawing power from the VDD5v on the BBB. The BBB “blacked out” twice while nothing was happening and while connected to both a 5V regulated power supply (Adafruit) and USB power. I was worried that the DRV8834 was drawing too much power (although I have found it uses < 200 mA @ 5V), so I used a separate power supply for the DRB8834. Only the logic of the DRV8834 was hooked up to the BBB - nothing that would supply power and no analog inputs. The third blackout also occurred without an obvious precipitant - again with both power sources connected (USB and barrel plug). Now the power LED flashes briefly when either USB or barrel plug power (Adafruit power source for BBB) is connected to the BBB. It will not sustain the power button nor boot up.

This seems to be a repetitive theme on this forum. I am losing faith in the BBB ever functioning in a real world environment if it is this fragile. Is there any way to protect the BBB processor (or whatever is blowing) with external circuitry or power?

Appreciate any help. I’m now out over $200 with these boards and I cannot identify anything that should be damaging them. Considering changing to another system at this point. Although I am impressed with the capability of the BBB, I would not call it a robust system.

Help!

Gerald: I have 2 BBBs that will give a single brief flash of the power LED when the power button is pushed, as described by others. It will not sustain the power LED on nor boot up. When I power it from the barrel connector (Adafruit regulated 5v power source / AC to DC 5v 2A) while on a digital volt / ammeter, no current flow registers at all during the brief flash of the power LED. The voltage reads 5.08 volts. I cannot see that this is due to either an unregulated power source (also happens on USB power on 2 PCs by the way). Nor does it look like excessive current draw. Other ideas?

If you do not use it properly, it will be damaged. That applies to every electronic circuit ever designed. I would have stopped using the circuitry after the second try.

I would be happy to look at your circuit and see if I can identify what the issue might be.

Gerald

Gerald: I am super impressed that you would offer your valuable time to help with not much in return than thanks.

Background: I’m developing a complicated prototype and I am new to embedded systems. I was fairly frustrated that I could not “just hook things up” and have them at least not destroy the BBB while testing. I am beginning to understand that, like any device, more capability comes with more complexity and vulnerabilities. I still see the BBB as an amazing opportunity for inventors overall and realize that I need to learn more to use it properly.

I cannot point to one circuit that caused the damage to the BBBs because I am trying different arrangements to integrate multiple devices. However, if you could answer some basic questions on design strategy, that could help.

Here’s what I need to accomplish:

I need to power 4 accessories: (1) a small stepper motor through the Pololu DRV8834 driver board. It consumes about 200 – 300 mA at 5 volts, (2) an IC chip via pulse wave modulation – it requires about 620mA at 1.55V, (3) a small DC motor which consumes about 40 mA at 3V (either by PWM and a relay or straight from a 3.3 V source) and (4) a small cooling fan – consumes about 120 mA at 5 V.

I need to control turning all these on and off by a clock function.

I need to read a GVS digital sensor: consumes less than 10 mA at 5 V.

I need to read a GVS analog input: 5V input, output < 1 volt.

I need to read DC voltages (analog): (1) on a pin on the DRV8834 driver board (0-1 volt range), (2) on a sensor with special input requirements – it needs both (+) 5 volts AND (-) 5 volts inputs to power it. The (-) voltage is derived from (+) 5 V using this inverter ICL7660A, which I have found to be about 91% efficient at converting DC (+) to DC(-) for this application. Sensor output max about 1.2 volts.

Finally, I need to add and read a real time clock (RTC) such as the Chronodot (Adafruit) – requires I2C bus SDA, and SCL, as well as GND and (+) 5V.

What do you think of these strategies:

(1) Use the BBB-GVS board (http://beagleboard.org/project/BBB-GVS/). This board appears to provide a layer of protection from the sensor voltage inputs and power outputs for the BBB. The problem is they may not be a reliable supplier and I cannot tell if this board will accomplish all these tasks.

(2) Use the BBB only for logic and supply all the power from an independent (probably 5V cell phone charger power pack) source with voltage regulator, using PWM and relays to regulate the voltages lower than 5 V and relays to control intermittent power needs. Would this be safer for the BBB i.e. not using power directly off the BBB while trying to read sensor output at the same time? It seems dangerous to me tying all the grounds together (analog, digital and power) that would be required to get both power out of the BBB and signal into it.

(3) Power the BBB via a 3.7 volt backup battery through TP5 and TP8 to prevent abrupt cessation of power should a system failure occur. Seems like it would be possible to write code to give the “sudo shutdown –h now” command when the power went down. This would allow the PMIC time to do an orderly shutdown.

I suspect that the sensors may be putting voltages on the BBB pins before they are powered up as part of the problem, but I am not sure how to prevent this. Is there a way to power up the sensors after the BBB has properly booted and to shut them down before the PMIC does its shutdown sequence? Any other external wiring or devices that could help safeguard the BBB? Any advice you can offer on any of this or other ways to protect the BBB would be appreciated.

That is a long email. Send me a direct email, and at some point we can have a discussion.

Gerald

OK - great!. For a direct email, is your address mtdsandman@gmail.com?

Alan

No, gerald@beagleboard.org

Gerald

The BeagleBone Black & BlueSteel Basic seem to be extremely sensitive to

the rise time of the 5V power supply at startup.

1 ms or longer is a problem, and it is not at all unusual for power

supply to be slower than this.

200 us is reliable.

From the datasheet for the TPS65217 PMIC used on the BBB, section 9.3.9.1, TI seems to agree.

Note that the rise time of VAC and VUSB must be less than 50 ms for the detection circuits to operate properly. If the rise time is longer than 50 ms, the IC may fail to power up.

HTH
Dennis Cote

Mine died just now and was powered by roboticscape with 2S lipo and USB.

Cape is okay, BBB dead…bit miffed about this…

No possible DIY repair ?