Help! My BBBL just arrived Monday and was in the middle of porting my quadcopter code to it. I was able to get 9DOF measurements from it and decided to take it to the library with me, so I put it back into the static bag it came with, placed it in the original box in between the ESD foam it came with and placed it into my backpack. When I took it out, I found that it was unresponsive. I thought maybe I somehow bricked it by not doing a shutdown -h before unplugging it, so I tried to follow online directions on booting from an external uSD card.
If I power the board from USB or an external 3S Lipo, all I see is the blue ON LED, the LIPO status LED stuck at 75, and the G and R LED’s on (picture below). If I press the SD button with the uSD already plugged in and apply power, I don’t see any blinking lights that tell me it’s booting from the uSD card.
I’ve tried the Debian 8.7 2017-03-19 IoT and Debian 8.7 2017-03-19 LXQT firmware, I tried a 8GB and a 32GB uSDHC card, I tried 2 different USB cables. When plugged into a USB port, I can’t find the network access point to be able to login using 192.168.7.2, and also I can’t ping the device over it’s wireless network after I had configured the wifi using connman.
I’m starting to think that the hardware was somehow damaged (but I felt I took appropriate ESD considerations, and transported it in its box).
This is my first beagle bone product ever (but have used many Arduino’s, RPI and Intel Edison). Is there some newbie mistake I’m making? Thanks for your help in advance!
Thanks for the response William,
I followed the directions online to put in a formatted uSD card with firmware, held the boot button down (it’s a momentary push button, not an on/off switch) while plugging in a 3S Lipo (12V). No booting from uSD happens . To double check I viewed the process on YouTube (for BB Black) to make sure I was doing what was expected.
What do you think? I realize these boards are new (says Beaglebone Blue Rev A2 on back) but I hope there isn’t some sort of defect with them. I used a DMM to verify that the push buttons are shorted when depressed.
The Blue uses a 2S LiPo battery. ~7VDC vs ~12VDC. In the specs that William ref’ed look for section e, Power management, ii => 2 cell (2S) LiPo battery charger.
I haven’t checked the schematic, but you might have caused a problem.
Chad
Per the data sheet William link, it states Power Source input of 9-18V for DC Jack… plus there is a 12V sticker on it too.
I had also checked the schematic and it uses the AP1509 voltage regulator which says to have a max Vin of 24V. I was interested in seeing if it could support a 6S LiPo ultimately for a future multicopter project.
Looking at the schematic for the Blue, , 1st page upper right hand corner, there is a “2S Lithium Balancer and Protection” circuit. This uses a BQ29209 chip. The “Electrical Characteristics” for this device, , give maximum values but the device is based on 2S not 3S LiPo’s. Using a 3S or 6S might invalidate the warranty. The barrel connector and LiPo battery both connect to a AP1509 5VREG, there are diodes protecting against reverse current flow. 12VDC feed from the barrel jack basically shuts off current flow from the ~7.4 VDC battery into the AP1509 while without the 12VDC feed, the LiPo battery will feed the AP1509. You can have one or the other or both sources, these do not affect the 2S balancer. Chad
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 21:22:44 -0700 (PDT), Ted Carancho
<tedcarancho@gmail.com> declaimed the
following:
on/off switch) while plugging in a 3S Lipo (12V). No booting from uSD
Only specs I've found in a quick search are https://beagleboard.org/blue but a key factor on that page is that the
/charger input/ is 9-18V, which implies (allowing for need to push a higher
voltage than the battery to charge it) the battery is less than 9V.
Specifies "2-cell LiPo" -- your "3S" 12V probably fried some circuits.
Thanks for the response William,
I followed the directions online to put in a formatted uSD card with
firmware, held the boot button down (it's a momentary push button, not an
on/off switch) while plugging in a 3S Lipo (12V). No booting from uSD
happens . To double check I viewed the process on YouTube (for BB Black) to
make sure I was doing what was expected.
The only documentation I've seen seems to indicate that the Beaglebone blue
has a 2 cell 6-16v charger circuit, which tells me that battery input
voltage can also be in that range.Or more correctly 12v nominal battery
input. However, with that said, the documentation I've seen to date is not
what I'd consider to be complete. Which is to say, I don't have one of
these boards, and I just have not looked all that hard.
What do you think? I realize these boards are new (says Beaglebone Blue
Rev A2 on back) but I hope there isn't some sort of defect with them. I
used a DMM to verify that the push buttons are shorted when depressed.
Anything obvious I'm missing?
I do not think so. About the only thing I can think of is that you could
hook up a 3v3 logic USB to UART module / cable to see if uboot gives you
any additional information as to what's happening. I'd probably contact the
reseller you purchased this from however, and look into getting an RMA.
Because if everything is as you say( no left out details ), it sounds like
a potentially defective board. Which I've yet to see a defective beaglebone
black, or green to date, and I've handled quite a few greens( 50 +).
I'm considering buying one myself just so I can help others troubleshoot
the board once in a while. But that may / may not happen.
Additionally, I presume you have a Robotics application which you’re wanting to experiment with. With that said, maybe it could be beneficial to get one of the other variants initially. Then if you’re like me, opt out of the wireless variants, and if you need wireless get a well supported dongle with an external antenna cable connection.
By well supported, I mean a dongle that uses a chipset that is well supported in Linux( Debian ), and is not too short. The length could potentially play a factor in interference with the HDMI, if you’re using the HDMI output at all If not it is my understanding that you can simply disable HDMI to bypass that problem.
I did want to say that I also own an rpi 3.0, and I know there is a lot more documentation all over the web concerning that platform. Some of the software, and utilities seem to be pretty good too. With that said, in the context of robotics, and general embedded Linux. I’d have to say that the beaglebone SBC’s are light years ahead, in terms of flexibility, and connectivity. Where the beaglebone platform is also a platform that requires more knowledge from the user or engineer using it. Basically, aside from what you’ll find googling, and what information people will share here. There is no hand holding on this platform. Which means you need to check everything you’re working with.
For instance, if you had any IO connected to this board through any of the GPIO, or other periphery pins while you powered the board up, or down. You could have damaged the processor. So all the pins need to be isolated in that case. Ethernet, USB, and the serial debug port are exceptions to this rule. But are not what I’d exactly consider “periphery” in the context of embedded systems.
The IO pins are also only 3v3 tolerant, and can only source / sink a
minimal amount of current. I want to say as far as sourcing or sinking,
~5mA is your limit. I do know that some pins can handle more, and others
still less. So always check the datasheet for the AM355x processor. Or in
this case, perhaps the Ovtavo SoM has some differences ? Not sure on that.
But in either case, you need to find all that out, before connecting to,
and using any of the input / output on the board.
Oh, I think I understand the confusion. I didn’t connect a 3S LiPo to the 2S LiPo connector (3 pin JST I think). I connected the 3S LiPo to the DC barrel jack that has a 12V sticker on it (I think you can see it in the BB Blue pictures online).
I went into purchasing the BB Blue with eyes wide open, knowing it’s brand new. When the board was working I was very impressed with the cloud9 IDE and the capability to even use a terminal directly from a web browser. I only worked with the onboard IMU and barometer and didn’t connect any other external devices yet.
I contacted the vendor I bought this from (Newark/Element 14) and they provided me a full refund within 2 days! Great customer support! I’ll wait awhile to see if others have success with their batch of the board and give the Beaglebone Blue a try again in the future. (I also entertained buying one of the more well used versions, but I really like the integrated IMU so I’ll wait)
I went into purchasing the BB Blue with eyes wide open, knowing it's brand
new. When the board was working I was very impressed with the cloud9 IDE
and the capability to even use a terminal directly from a web browser. I
only worked with the onboard IMU and barometer and didn't connect any other
external devices yet.
It seems a lot of people like the cloud9 IDE, but I do not really like it
much personally. I've always been a minimalist type when I can be, and I
just use ssh to compile my projects natively using gcc from the command
line. One of the issues I have with cloud9, is that it's not always
responsive enough for me. Another is that it is not documented well enough
on this platform for my own wants. e.g. I have my own development system in
place that works very well for me, with no real motivation to switch to
something that seems to want to fight against the user when that user
want's to customize it's features.
I contacted the vendor I bought this from (Newark/Element 14) and they
provided me a full refund within 2 days! Great customer support! I'll
wait awhile to see if others have success with their batch of the board and
give the Beaglebone Blue a try again in the future. (I also entertained
buying one of the more well used versions, but I really like the integrated
IMU so I'll wait)
Well that's good. I'd expect no less from Element14 though.
I’m seeing a problem that may be related. We have now fried 3 BeagleBone Blues Rev A2. We started using ours with a 15V 2.6A supply without connecting a LiPo battery. After only a couple of power cycles, the battery charging IC gets very hot and pops with a puff of smoke and a burned trace on the board. I’ve not seen any similar/related posts. Are the posted docs incomplete or incorrect? Is 12V the max? Is it required to have a LiPo battery attached at all times when powered?
BB Blue was in the process of booting with usb-power. Attached to the board was:
an Adafruit GPS module (GPS connector)
six NAZA ESC, data and GND pinned to the 8x3header (1…6), flight power battery to the ESC unconnected.
one Spektrum satellite receiver to E4 connector
there was no battery attached to the bb blue LIPO connector.
When I plugged in a 12V from an AC/DC Adapter to the barrel connector the LIPO charger IC smoked away.
I powered up this collection several times before, even flew the copter a few seconds.
Anyway in the schematic I cannot find a plausible cause for a high current at that situation.
What a disappointment.
I’ve had to move on to another project for the short term, but since changing our process, we have not had an issue with the LIPO charging IC. Discontinuing use of the USB power connector seems to be key, and this setup has worked for multiple days without incident. We now cable to USB for initial configuration without standalone power, then use Wi-Fi for connectivity and a 12-15v power adapter exclusively.
Mine was working fine, until I let the battery that was running it die down. Then it wouldn’t restart (same lights as in parent photo). Also seemed to be running hot. I was very excited about this board, but I need more reliability then this.
I’m seeing a problem that may be related. We have now fried 3 BeagleBone Blues Rev A2.
I recommend starting a new thread for a different issue. Otherwise, I find it difficult to see if issues are getting useful responses. I understand you saw this one as possibly related, but you say you’ve seen smoke and I don’t want to miss issues like that. The outer thread still looks like it could be file system corruption to me.
We started using ours with a 15V 2.6A supply without connecting a LiPo battery. After only a couple of power cycles, the battery charging IC gets very hot and pops with a puff of smoke and a burned trace on the board. I’ve not seen any similar/related posts.
I believe this operation is meant to be fine. The charging circuit should provide power to the system in this case.
Are the posted docs incomplete or incorrect? Is 12V the max?
18V is the max.
Is it required to have a LiPo battery attached at all times when powered?
We generally expect you to have the LiPo battery, but I believe the case where no battery is present should be OK.
Did the board come with the wire on CHGIC or is that damage as well? What kind of load did you have on the system when it was damaged?
As Jason mentioned. Please make a separate new post / thread so as not to
confuse the issue. With that said, I'm not sure we're talking about the
same thing. In your new post, please be more verbose.
