US 2.0 Troubleshooting

**Logan Cade** · 11-27-2008, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by Darth Morbius

Give us some time to have Dinner with our families yo...

LOL! No problem, I'm doing the same here. Checking the bird, and attending guests...while sneaking down to the workshop every now and then and playing around.

**TD-2272** · 11-27-2008, 11:55 AM

It sucks to the fact that I do have some li-ions coming but they are not due untill Dec 5th arrgh. Once I get the setup down it works fine until a battery glitch. To Morbis and Ultra no worry mates just a glitch in the matrix of things and it will all work out in the end

**UltraSWG** · 11-27-2008, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by DizzyKungFu

Hrmm... I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'd rather not be limited by the battery type. This sounds strange to me anyway... I thought voltage was voltage as far as electronics were concerned. No? Do Li-Ions produce a different energy wave or something? Do any EEs out there have any technical insights?

Xwing explained it pretty well a couple posts back.

**UltraSWG** · 11-27-2008, 12:14 PM

Just got an email from the manufacturer. Our support network is excellent, yall, even on holidays! Here's the message:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am aware of the cause for these issues.

The processor has a power on reset timer.... meaning, it will wait a short amount of time before the power supply stabilizes. But, if the battery or power supply does not stabilize within this period, the system will not boot. The solution is to:

make sure the battery pack is solidly wired, if the batteries are making contact intermittently it will be unreliable. Also, some types of batteries have problems supplying power appropriately... and might take a while to catch up once a load is first applied. I was using lithium ion batteries for most of the testing...

Also, the onboard power regulator has capacitors which help regulate variations in power, however, since these capacitors can maintain a voltage after the battery is removed it can interfere with the processor's power on reset timer. If batteries need to be replaced just after being removed, the device might not start up. BUT... all you have to do is momentarily discharge the capacitors. This can be done either by waiting a minute after power is removed, or directly shorting out the leads of the power connector (which can be done even with the battery attached). This should work 100% of the time.

The button switch wires must be kept short, a good quality (low bounce) switch should also be used.

Perhaps I could make some connection guidelines to help people install it correctly.

Also, the board worked perfectly for me. I think the best solution would be a reset button. Then, even if the user had power supply problems, or the system locked up, a simple reset could be triggered to fix the problem.

Let me know what happens,

Jesse Randall
Design Coordinator

**Logan Cade** · 11-27-2008, 01:12 PM

Hmm…. Am I supposed to take that as we have to live with these issues?

That specific batteries, switches and reset procedures will be required to make it work correctly?

**xwingband** · 11-27-2008, 01:23 PM

Would also attempting to turn it on after power removal discharge the caps? That might help as a quick way of doing it if it works. I'm just going on my experience of headphone amps and stuff that use capacitors extensively. I know it's not a lot of charge coming out but I wouldn't like to be shorting the power very often.

I'm glad to hear the low "bounce" idea is confirmed.

I hope it all works out for people. Later, I had my turkey and I'm going for nap time!

**grayven** · 11-27-2008, 01:30 PM

So from that I get that I need to install a SPDT kill switch. Com poll to the + board, On poll to battery pack + and Off poll to board and battery pack -. This way when I kill power to the board I also short out the board cap's. Will it hurt the board in anyway to keep the + and - shorted out on the board (power cut of coarse)?

**UltraSWG** · 11-27-2008, 01:30 PM

I would take it to mean that you need to use a battery that can handle the immediate current draw that occurs when the board initially boots up, which would be Li-Ions, Lithium primary cells, or Nihm packs at 6v+. Apparantly the boards don't like 6v Alkalines because they can't keep up with the initial draw. Same reason Alkalines aren't used in digital cameras and the like. If you must use Alkalines, I'd suggest using 7.5+ volts instead of 6.

Use short switch lines and use a high quality, low-bounce switch.

A reset switch, or rather a true on-off switch is a good idea anyway.

If this is unacceptable, don't flip out, this is not the final word, it's just the first response I got. The fact I even got one on Thanksgiving day is amazing.