I recently purchased a RAK 19007 VER-C with a RAK4631 V2.0 board.
Initially I hooked it up to a computer via USB without a battery and it at least made a serial port. The red light was on and the Green light was blinking.
Using the serial port and online meshtastic configuration tool I was able to query the module data. However it never appeared to be transmitting in either bluetooth or 900MHz band. I did try this with passive power and got similar results.
Looking at the block diagram, it appears that you always need a battery or the 4631 won’t be powered. This was a pretty simplistic block diagram and I could be wrong. However, I did get a 3.7V 1300mAH battery and plug it into the module (unpowered) and then applied power via the USB port. The red light was constant for a very long time. It eventually appeared to charge and the red light extinguished.
Now I get no response to anything. The best I can do is get the red light to dimly flash when hooking up USB power, and not every time.
If I hold down the reset button and attach the USB Cable the green light will sometimes flash when I take my finger off the reset button.
However I never get a serial port that comes alive. I’ve searched through the forum and tried a few things.
I have no idea on the current software loaded since I can’t talk to it at all.
The parent system is MAC running MACOS Tahoe 26.1
Can’t exactly flash a new image without a serial line. I have not tried this on a linux box yet.
Can you please share your current setup including the battery? You can send via message if you do not want to share in public.
The kit with base+core should work even without battery.
Correct observation that the red LED will dim and eventually of if battery is fully charged. Green LED should blink to indicate Meshtastic FW heartbeat.
If it cannot be detected by PC, you can try to change USB cable, try different USB port or use different machine/PC.
If still not detected, you can also check if there is 3.3V on VDD of RAK4631, just to ensure that it is not supply related issue. There must be 3.3V on VDD even if only powered by USB.
If serial port cannot be detected after doing everything above, there is no other way but use an external tool like RAKDAP1 or Jlink to reupload the bootloader. Assuming it is bootloader related issue.
The figure above shows the configuration including the battery.
Originally I had a serial port and could use the meshtastic configuration tool to change settings, but they were volatile. They did not persist between power on/off.
no red LED at all. No flashing green either.
I’ve tried 3 different USB cables. They do work for data with other products. I have not yet tried a different PC.
5 There is 3.3V on VDD of RAK4631 with USB attached. The battery seems defunct since there is no power on battery alone. I’m awaiting a new one in the mail to try.
6 probably likely that the system is corrupt at this point. Can you point me to the tutorial on using the RAKDAP1 or Jlink? Also, is that something you sell?
Your battery polarity is not matching the RAK19007 baseboard. These type of battery connectors vary depending on manufacturer (there is no standard polarity) and the one you have has reverse polarity.
