Fixing/salvaging dead control board/BB

This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 4 months ago by mattkratz.

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June 23, 2021 at 8:53 pm #1257

mattkratz
Participant

Hey all,
We’ve recently been running into some trouble with our chi bio setup.

1. One of our beaglebone seems to have died. We had just started a run, but we quickly got a message “PuTTY Fatal Error: Connection Timed Out”. From that point on whenever we plugged the beaglebone back to a power source, none of it’s LEDs lighted up i.e. it probably died. It’s not obvious what exactly caused the BB to die, we had done a brief cleanup of the area prior to this incident, but the control board wasn’t clearly in contact with any liquids. Apart from it likely dying, is there any other explanation/anything we should try out before sending it back to labmaker?

2. We tried to salvage the control board from that beaglebone by connecting to an old beaglebone we had lying around in the lab. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this old beaglebone is properly communicating with the control board as it always get a string of “multiplex comm failure” errors that prevent launching the API. Using the command i2cdetect -y -r 2 none of the control board components show up. Not sure if it’s some fundamental incompatibility (old one is a BB black, chi bio is green, same A335 processor according to serial) or if the pins connecting the control board and the BB are not making proper contact (2 were slightly bent). Should the control board be compatible with older/different version BBs, do you think the bent pins could be causing the issue?

Thanks in advance for any advice…

June 24, 2021 at 8:49 am #1260

harrison
Keymaster

Hi Matt,

1. I have never heard of a control board fail in that manner. Does it still happen if you disconnect the Beaglebone itself from the control PCB? I.e. just a bare, standard beaglebone sitting alone ont he desk?
If I were to guess the cause it might be that somehow the beaglebone’s internal power regulators got shorted, since some of these are used on the control PCB, but not sure how this could happen if as you say there was no liquid in contact.

2. Have you flashed the old beaglebone with the current version of the Chi.Bio operating system? This will update the underlying linux distro as well, which might solve this. I am unclear on what you mean w.r.t the specific board type: the Chi.Bio should be using a Beaglebone BLACK. Are you saying that you were shipped a Beaglebone GREEN? can you send me a picture of the board you _were_ sent?

The control board is designed for Beaglebone Black Rev C. I do not know whether it will work with other versions of Beaglebone Black, nor do I know whether it would work with beaglebone Green.
As to the pins – if they are going into the sockets as intended then it should be OK.

June 24, 2021 at 8:34 pm #1263

mattkratz
Participant

Hey Harrison,

thanks for the prompt response

1. Without the control board, there are still no lights when connected via micro-usb. It seems like one way or another it got shorted so not much we can do at this point.

2. Yes the old board has been flashed with the new OS. I assumed the chi bio boards were green based off the serial numbers printed on the side (same info/serial from EEPROM). Specifically, all the chi bio boards have BBBG in their serial, which from a quick internet search (when i first posted) was associated with the green beagleboard, although I just had a look at this a found one BBB black rev C listing that pictured a board with a BBBG serial so I’m probably wrong on this. Here are the serials:

OLD BOARD: 2315BBBK0187, CHI BIO BOARD: 000C1936BBBG0103

Here’s a pic of the chi bio BB (removed control PCB):

June 24, 2021 at 8:36 pm #1264

mattkratz
Participant

Well seems like the image didn’t render properly (at least on my end). Here’s the drive link:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipObQ9rygGEcdp9TLO_wQu3L5Ofwlju49mNnXEjqefEyTTXD-iU_MfNTvPeJe7bSsQ?key=SUl5b2JkSUI2ajVwSXdQY0xhSmhRaFJIZUZQSTlB
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