Bela Mini stratup issues

TomFox

I'm working on an installation for another artist, adding sounds to her sculptures. Nothing fancy.

I'm using a Bela Mini, and playing 8 tracks via puredata to the outputs on the audio expander. They go off to some mini amplifiers that head off to the speakers in the sculptures.

I got the flu, so handed the hardware to the artist with simple instructions on setting up the speakers. They did so correctly and it was all working nicely, they turned them off to label some wires, turned it back on again and nothing!

I tried troubleshooting over whatsapp and whittled the issue down to the fact that the LED on the bela isn't blinking but is constant blue.

They've got the bela back to me and I can't get into the IDE, I can't find BELABOOT when the BelaMini is plugged in but can when the SD card is straight into the laptop.

The exhibition starts this week, is the board bricked?

giuliomoro

If there is only one led solid on and no other activity, then it's not working. Try reflashing the SD card? https://github.com/BelaPlatform/bela-image-builder/releases/tag/v0.3.8h

TomFox

Yeah, I've tried that. Also tried the SD card in a seperate Bela in that worked fine.

giuliomoro

There is a reset button between the PocketBeagle and the BelaMini and at least once it happened to me that by pressing it, a seemingly dead board came back to life. Can't promise anything but it may work. Pressing it is complicated, as you'll need to insert something flat and hard between the two boards and press down on the button. A flat-head screwdriver will do, just make sure to do it with the power off.

Failing that, and assuming a good SD card and power cable, then all would point to the board being dead. It may be that during the rewiring/handling something went wrong (e.g.: electrostatic discharge or a power supply spike, or voltage being provided to Bela's pins while the board was powered down ... or something else).

TomFox

Yeah. I spotted that tip in another thread and tried it. It turned the Beagle off after 6 seconds or so but not much else. (Servo attachments make good little pokey sticks, for future reference)

I'll drop you an email as I'm pretty sure it's gone the way of the dinosaurs.