Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

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mirwin
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 1:06 pm

Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

Post by mirwin »

I purchased an Airlift Shield a few months ago and have never been able to get any of the tests to work. I'm using the latest version of Circuitpython and the latest libraries.

I have entered the test code line by line and the failure occurs at this point

if esp.status == adafruit_esp32spi.WL_IDLE_STATUS:
print("ESP32 found and in idle mode")
print("Firmware vers.", esp.firmware_version)
print("MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in esp.MAC_address]

With this error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 335, in status
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 324, in _send_command_get_response
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 243, in _send_command
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 238, in _send_command
RuntimeError: ESP32 timed out on SPI select

I was reading that the ESP32 firmware could be a problem so I tried to upgrade it using the suggested method to the latest version with the following results.

✘ mike@Mikes-MBP  ~  esptool.py --port /dev/tty.usbmodem14101 --before no_reset --baud 115200 write_flash 0 /Users/mike/Downloads/NINA_W102-1.7.3.bin
esptool.py v3.0
Serial port /dev/tty.usbmodem14101
Connecting........_____....._____....._____....._____....._____....._____....._____

A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to Espressif device: Timed out waiting for packet header

I tried without the pads jumpered and with them jumpered and get the same results.

I am wondering if the Airlift is defective.

Any Suggestions?

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dThirteen
 
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 6:20 pm

Re: Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

Post by dThirteen »

Generally, it's worth checking your soldering from when you added the headers. Heat up your iron and touch it to the joints just long enough for the solder to flow again. That should hopefully take care of any dry joints if there are any. The support guys will likely ask you for pictures of your soldering, in any case.

Also, check your code has the correct pins defined. I see the product pages mention the pin numbers in the example code has been updated. You should be able to check the pin numbers by looking at the printing on the board itself.

All else failing, post pictures and your full example code, please.

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mirwin
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 1:06 pm

Re: Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

Post by mirwin »

Already checked the pins with microscope that I use for surface mount repair so that is done.
Also looked at the board itself and can't see anything although its hard to see the connections of the ESP32.

Pins used are.
esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D10)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D7)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D5)

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mirwin
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 1:06 pm

Re: Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

Post by mirwin »

here is the code

import board
import busio
from digitalio import DigitalInOut

from adafruit_esp32spi import adafruit_esp32spi

print("ESP32 SPI hardware test")

esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D10)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D7)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D5)

spi = busio.SPI(board.SCK, board.MOSI, board.MISO)
esp = adafruit_esp32spi.ESP_SPIcontrol(spi, esp32_cs, esp32_ready, esp32_reset)

print("made it to line 15")
if esp.status == adafruit_esp32spi.WL_IDLE_STATUS:
print("ESP32 found and in idle mode")
print("made it to line 18")
print("Firmware vers.", esp.firmware_version)
print("MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in esp.MAC_address])

for ap in esp.scan_networks():
print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d" % (str(ap['ssid'], 'utf-8'), ap['rssi']))

print("Done!")

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mirwin
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 1:06 pm

Re: Airlift Shield on Metro m4 express Defective?

Post by mirwin »

I setup the Airlift Shield on an Arduino Uno and it can't see the ESP32.

Guess its time to set it aside unless someone has any other ideas.

I also have a Pyportal and the code works on it so I have to assume there is a hardware issue with the Airlift.

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