Bela Mini might be flaking out?

giuliomoro

PaulELong It was occasionally disconnecting from USB. I

what image do you have on it? v0.3.8b should have fixed some issues with USB disconnecting if I remember correctly.

PaulELong . Finally I removed my cape and reset a few times and finally is started working again.

Then it could always disconnect for a variety of reasons:

excess CPU usage (stop the program with the cape button to regain access to it)
excess impulsive current draw (if the 3v3 line goes below 3.3V even just briefly (e.g.: in response to turning on a high current load), you may get a kernel panic or similar, the SD card is remounted as read-only and basically you have to reboot.
shorting 3v3 or 5v pins to ground could also trigger a reboot.

PaulELong To add to that I accidently deattached the USB micro connected from the beagle board. It still seems to work, but not sure I can re-secure it.

Oh that's a bad one. It's unlikely to keep working for long that way. If you are not using the USB host port on the BelaMini cape, you could repurpose that (or at least its pins) as a USB device port. See if you have the file /lib/firmware/PB-USB0-HOST.dtbo on your board (it should be there on v0.3.8b I think).

giuliomoro

giuliomoro Oh that's a bad one.

also, an unstable USB connector could be one of the causes of the unstable USB connection?

PaulELong

giuliomoro I broke the connector afterwards. I was removing my cape while leaving the USB cable attached and I accidently push up on the cable near the connector. This created a lot leverage which broke something.

I can try repurpose the USB connector on the BelaMini cape. Does that mean soldering a different USB micro connector OR creating (or buying) and USB-A to USB-A type connector?

giuliomoro

You could do this with a USB-A to USB-A connector I think, if you can find one (ensure it has all the 4 wires are connected and not just power, as it's sometimes the case). I have made myself a little USB_A-to-pins cable that I can plug into the headers. There are also some changes that have to be done on the image to make this work.

PaulELong

How do I tell what version I have?

I looked in the IDE but must be missing where it is? And then on the https://learn.bela.io/using-bela/bela-techniques/updating-bela/, it doesn't tell you how to determine the current version. BTW, I also notice the Bela Github Page link is incorrect, and points back to the same page rather than going to Github.

giuliomoro

It's not easily accessible from the IDE, though you would see it when logging in via ssh. Do grep v0 /etc/motd in the console at the bottom of the IDE, or in a terminal.

PaulELong

Cool, be nice to add that info to the page so you know if you should upgrade. I'm on v.0.3.7d so I'll upgrade and see if that stops the device from losing usb connection. Thanks for the help.

PaulELong

@giuliomoro, I click the link on the download and used the ID to update, but it's still v0.3.7d. Is this the right link to get the latest version?

https://github.com/BelaPlatform/Bela/archive/master.zip

giuliomoro

Yea but what you need is an update of the whole image not just of the core code. Basically you need to reflash your SD card

PaulELong

@giuliomoro , I have my new board and as expected when I removed the usb micro cable from the old broken board, the connector came unattached. I have the PB-USB0-HOST.dtbo you mentioned before and a USB-A to USB-A cable. How can I make it work with board with the broken connector?
Thanks, Paul

giuliomoro

You need to access the BELABOOT filesystem by inserting the SD card on your host computer and add two lines in the file uEnv.txt

after these lines:

uboot_overlay_addr2=/lib/firmware/BB-BELA-00A1.dtbo
uboot_overlay_addr3=/lib/firmware/BB-BELA-CTAG-SPI-00A0.dtbo

add these

uboot_overlay_addr4=/lib/firmware/PB-USB0-HOST.dtbo
uboot_overlay_addr5=/lib/firmware/PB-USB1-PERIPHERAL.dtbo

safely unmount the SD card and put it into the PocketBeagle.

Power it on with your USBA to USBA cable and it should automagically work?