+Vorticon Posted May 25, 2019 Share Posted May 25, 2019 Welp, it seems that the NanoPEB which had been powering my wireless weather station for the past 2 years has finally given up the ghost... On a routine check of the TI system managing the station, I was greeted with a blank screen. I reset everything with no change. I checked the CF card, and it's fine. Swapped it with a known working one, still no luck. Reseated the 9902 chip on the NanoPEB, nope... Cleaned all the contacts in the console and NanoPEB, still no dice. Checked the power supply, same thing. Replaced the power supply, ditto... So is it basically dead? It has been running 24/7 for 2 years now, but given that it's solid state with no moving parts, I did expect better from it. Heck, the TI console to which it is connected is several decades old and still running just fine! To be honest, I'm a little disgusted by that. Modern electronics just suck. If anyone here has any suggestions on how to revive the card, please let me know. There are really no user serviceable parts in it other than the 9902 chip. Otherwise, I may have to go on the hunt for another card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted May 25, 2019 Share Posted May 25, 2019 Check for power beyond the barrel connector just to be sure it isn't a bad solder joint at the connector. (my spare UDS had this problem). If power is good, you might want to pop the 9902 out of the nano to see if there is any difference. The nano might not power up without the chip but it is possible (though unlikely) that the 9902 interrupt line is holding the system hostage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted May 25, 2019 Share Posted May 25, 2019 Mine has not worked since FedEx gave it a roughing-up before the Faire. To be fair, one of the capacitors broke off the board and i have not yet replaced it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 Check for power beyond the barrel connector just to be sure it isn't a bad solder joint at the connector. (my spare UDS had this problem). If power is good, you might want to pop the 9902 out of the nano to see if there is any difference. The nano might not power up without the chip but it is possible (though unlikely) that the 9902 interrupt line is holding the system hostage. I did try that without success unfortunately. The card is getting power because the LED's light up. Something is preventing it from booting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 Mine has not worked since FedEx gave it a roughing-up before the Faire. To be fair, one of the capacitors broke off the board and i have not yet replaced it.I wonder if one of the capacitors went bad. At this stage it might be worth replacing them and see... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 OK problem solved. Turned out the CF to IDE adapter was the only element I had not swapped, and when I replaced it with the one I use with my CF7+, the NanoPEB came back to life. We're back in business I tried re-flowing all the solder joints on the old adapter but it still did not work. This is kind of weird because there are not a lot of parts on it... In any case, these adapters are plentiful and cheap, so no big loss here. For future reference in case someone encounters a blank blue screen on power up of the NanoPEB, check the CF-IDE adapter! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted May 26, 2019 Share Posted May 26, 2019 not to tempt fate but does the nano fail to start if the CF-IDE adapter is unplugged? Maybe there is no graceful return when the nano fails to load the initial info at power-up. Great job finding the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted May 26, 2019 Author Share Posted May 26, 2019 not to tempt fate but does the nano fail to start if the CF-IDE adapter is unplugged? Maybe there is no graceful return when the nano fails to load the initial info at power-up. Great job finding the problem. Yes, it won't even power up if there is no CF adapter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted May 26, 2019 Share Posted May 26, 2019 I spent a bit of time looking at that part of the NanoPeb when I needed to program Dragon's Lair from CF. When it boots up, the DSR reads from the Compact Flash card. If it has a PC-style signature in block 0 (I didn't check exactly how it determines this), it /overwrites/ it with a fixed pattern. The mount information for the three disks is saved in this block, so that's probably why (but it does mean that if you power up with a card in the CF that had PC or camera files, the format of that card will be corrupted). Anyway, there's no timeout on that test - if the card doesn't respond, it will sit there forever. The IDE to CF adapter that the NanoPeb uses is fairly standard, I had a couple in my parts bin some time back. Oddly, though, not just /any/ adapter works, and I wasn't sure why. But there's very little to them - schematics are available online. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDMike Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 (edited) I have that problem with one of my NANOPEB s. It acts like it wants to boot, as I see a yellow led flash at boot-up, but it just sits at a lt blue display.. I've pulled the cf interface connection and flipped it, Cleaned it..I dunno.. nothing seems to help. Tried with good tested cf cards. Reseated that serial chip.. I swapped out the cf component board with my other nano and it didn't care about the change. I'm still hopeful though! Edited June 6, 2019 by GDMike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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