FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

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pmcconico
 
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FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by pmcconico »

Hello, I have a FONA 3G. It was working for some time, now however, when I power it up with my Arduino UNO, the NET and PWR leds blink simultaneously on a interval of around 5 seconds. What is going wrong with the device?

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rskup
 
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Re: FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by rskup »

Difficult for folks to help with little detail about your setup, but if I hadn't made any changes whatsoever to my FONA 3G setup since it last ran, and I was confident the wiring and code was good, I'd now be disconnecting my FONA 3G and testing it on its own.

If you haven't run it on its own before, Adafruit's FONA 3G tutorial has a section called "Direct USB Connection" that will help with that. Then you can test if your FONA 3G is ok by itself.

I've used X-CTU (as shown in the tutorial) to communicate with my FONA 3G and send AT commands, but I think most people here use PuTTY, if you're more familiar with that.

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pmcconico
 
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Re: FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by pmcconico »

Not sure why but plugging in directly by USB solved the issue. I didn't even issue any commands. Not sure what happened but the device is operating as expected again.

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pmcconico
 
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Re: FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by pmcconico »

Actually, this is still occurring. I am able to restore the FONA by plugging it into my laptop and holding the reset button for 2-3 seconds.

I have wired the FONA as described in the example:
+5v => 5v pin
+5v => vio pin
ground => ground pin

I am using an Arduino Nano to control the FONA. The issue seems to occur, perhaps, after the battery has died. For example, the FONA is currently working fine but if I turn off the device and try again tomorrow then this issue occurs.

Is there any other info I can provide to be helpful?

There should be a doc somewhere that defines this blink pattern ... the interval is more like 10 seconds.

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rskup
 
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Re: FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by rskup »

Odd, trying to find something in both the 5320 AT manual and the Hardware & Design manual that references that blinking pattern, but not finding anything. Almost sounds like the 5320 is turning on, then off, and so on. Wondering if the program on the Nano is doing something odd, what sketch are you running on the Nano, the FONA Test sketch or something you created?

Just thought of something, when you say "turn off the device", are you using the KEY pin low/high sequence to turn the FONA off (which is a safe software shutdown for the chip), or are you just cutting the power?

Just cutting power may be putting the chip into some unstable state (section 3.2.2 in the Hardware & Design manual briefly talks about this).

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pmcconico
 
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Re: FONA not found: NET and PWR LEDs Blink Simultaneously

Post by pmcconico »

I am only cutting the power. I will try safely shutting down and get back to you, thanks @rskup!

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