Raspberry Pi Pico H not connecting with Macbook

[kmcsorley]

I just got a class set of RP Pico Hs. I am able to connect my previous RP Pico Ws to my Macbooks no problem, but I am struggling with these new devices from Adafruit. The storage device doesn't appear on my desktop. I know the cord is a power/data cord. I have tried to connect to several different Macbooks. Different OSs (Sonoma and Sequoia). Not sure what's going on. Any advice would be very appreciated! Please see the video linked below:
https://youtu.be/xmEnVyWwWGs

[adafruit_support_carter]

Remove black foam and try again.

[kmcsorley]

I tried removing the foam, but no luck. Any other recommendations? Thank you

[adafruit_support_carter]

Do you have one that has not been plugged in yet? Try same thing.

This is known issue with the black foam. It is conductive and shorts the pins. The board should generally not be powered with the black foam covering the pins.

[kmcsorley]

I just tried with a device straight from the package. No luck. See linked video:
https://youtu.be/uXoRNsXwXUI

[adafruit_support_carter]

Thanks. That looks fine. Can you try again with same USB cable setup from first video? (no hub)

[kmcsorley]

That worked! I am a little bit baffled since the hub has worked with Pico Ws. So the process should be:

• Remove the Pico from the package along with the foam.
  Use a USB A to USB C adaptor (not a hub)
  Press BOOTSEL and connect to a computer.
  Open Thonny
  Download Micropython

Does that sound right? Thank you!

[adafruit_support_carter]

The main thing is to avoid that black foam, since it shorts the pins. The white foam (from first video) on the other board is probably non-conductive, but even there it'd be best to not have it on, just in case.

The USB hub thing could be many things, just part of general USB weirdness between all the flavors these days. USB cables themselves can even be source of issue - and actually are a huge source of issues (charge only cables!). There shouldn't be any difference between the behavior of the Pico W and the Pico H though. Esp. for the bootloader mode. Since they are both RP2040 chips. It'd be identical behavior. H just means it has headers. W just means there's a wifi peripheral (external to the RP2040).

What you do once you have the RPI-RP2 folder is up to you. But that's essentially your starting point for anything. If you can not get the RPI-RP2 folder to show, figure that out first. Everything after that will just be software. You can load Micropython and use Thonny. You can load CircuitPython and use Mu (or Thonny, or other). You can program Arduino. In general, it's up to you and whatever setup and workflow works best for you.

[kmcsorley]

Thank you so much for your help. I looked on a lot of forums and couldn't figure this out on my own.