Possible defect in new Airlift Featherwing ESP32 Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[T_Mo]

Greetings,
I recently purchased a second Airlift Featherwing ESP32 (Adafruit PN: 4264). It appears to be defective.

I already have a working RP2040 feather and Airlift setup with Adafruit IO, so the CircuitPython software package and RP2040 are known-good.

I added headers to the Airlift, swapped it onto the working RP2040, and no joy. On the Mu serial port, CircuitPython reports one of two runtime errors at startup:
- ESP32 Timed out on SPI select
- ESP32 not responding

I'm an electrical engineer with 30 years experience, and I think my soldering job of the headers looks OK.
A visual inspection of the Airlift shows that the wifi module is slightly askew on its pads, and some of the surface solder joints look a little questionable under magnification.

How do you suggest I proceed?
- Tom

[T_Mo]

IMG_4527_crop.jpg (165.28 KiB) Viewed 134 times

Adding a photograph. The skew in the alignment is slight, but there isn't a lot of room between the surface pads and header pins. The "B" sticker is so I can track which Airlift module I was testing. "A" is the original one that works.

[T_Mo]

I have not seen a reply from Adafruit staff on this thread yet.

It's where Customer Support told me I should post my issue for resolution.

[T_Mo]

Still no reply from Adafruit staff.

Update: I have updated the firmware in the "A" Airlift board (to version 1.7.4)) without problems (using the esptool.py.exe tool).

Trying the same procedure on the 'B' Airlift board throws a fatal "failed to connect" error (image attached):

esp32_B_update_fail.PNG (17.53 KiB) Viewed 104 times

[adafruit_support_carter]

Just to check for the attempt to update firmware, did you solder the jumpers on the FeatherWing?
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-air ... -3071493-2

[T_Mo]

Yes, I soldered the jumpers.
And I double-checked the correct COM port.

[adafruit_support_carter]

Let's just replace it. You've got a working second copy of same hardware, soldering looks good, so seems like something specific to that board.

Send an email to support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread and your order number and they can send you a replacement AirLift FeatherWing.

[T_Mo]

Thank you.

[T_Mo]

Report back: The replacement Airlift board works correctly. I was able to update the ESP32 firmware to 1.7.4, and it runs the wifi checkout script correctly.

Thanks for your help!