Ice Tube Clock quit working - 2021 Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[Limnidytis]

John, I used your RevD board and downloaded/compiled the firmware from github — the clock powers on, and the display comes on — but there is no response to any button presses. I need to find the schematic to troubleshoot the issue. Any pointers from you would be appreciated.

Johnny

[jarchie]

From your description, I'm guessing that you hear a startup beep and see the display blinking with one of the startup messages--probably "pwr rset" where the "w" looks like a "u" with a bar over it. Is that correct? If so, my first impulse would be to test the buttons (discussed later).

With respect to the schematic, there are Eagle files for the main board in the xmas-icetube GitHub repository here. I'll try to attach a PDF, in case that's easier.

The buttons and alarm switch circuit is pretty simple: the buttons/switch just connect a pin on the microcontroller to ground. There is a pull-up resistor for each of the microcontroller pins within the microcontroller. Those resistors are enabled for the buttons/alarm pins when the clock starts, and the pull-ups are disabled when the clock is off or sleeping on battery power. When the buttons/switch conduct and the clock is powered, the logic level on the corresponding microcontroller pins should be pulled down to ground. When the buttons and switch are open, the corresponding microcontroller pins should be pulled to +5v.

So to test the buttons, I would verify that they do not conduct when not pressed, and that they do conduct when pressed. Then check to make sure that the voltage at the corresponding microcontoller pins is dropping to ground when the buttons are pressed and rising to +5v when not pressed.

[Limnidytis]

A quick check with a mulimeter shows that both sides of switch #1 are connected to ground. I will check later that 5 volts is not present on either side of the switch.
Thanks for your help,
Johnny

[jarchie]

It's also possible that this is a firmware configuration problem. If I recall correctly, the microcontroller pin for SWITCH1 changes depending on the configuration variables in config.h. When compiling the firmware, did you remember to start from the config.h in the hardware/ directory? The following is an excerpt from the firmware/README:

Code: Select all | TOGGLE FULL SIZE

 (1) Edit the Configuration Variables

    First, review the macro definitions in config.h, changing definitions
    as needed to enable support for various hardware hacks.  The default
    values in config.h are suitable for the Adafruit Ice Tube Clock v1.1
    and includes support for the autodimmer and GPS mods.  For the
    xmas-icetube hardware revision, it may be more convenient to copy the
    config.h file from the hardware directory and edit that as desired:

   % cp ../hardware/config.h config.h

    Next, review the Makefile to ensure that configuration variables are
    reasonable given your hardware.  In particular, AVRISP and AVRDUDEOPT
    seem most likely to require attention.

In particular, the XMAS_DESIGN and VFD_TO_SPEC macros must both be uncommented in config.h for the menu button (SWITCH1) to function on an xmas rev d board, but that should have already been done if you started from the version of config.h in the hardware/ directory. Just another thing to double check.

Otherwise, S1 might be bad or shorted somehow.

Hope that helps.