WisMesh Pocket - died after 1 week

WisBlock
1

Hey folks,

I received my WisMesh Pocket last week, and set it up with latest Meshtastic firmware, it worked flawlessly… for 1 week. I had it always on and wired into a USB port in my car as a mobile node to replace the T-Echo.

Yesterday I discovered that the device no longer turns on. The screen is dead, and buttons do nothing. When the USB power is plugged in, I see a solid red light at the bottom. Battery voltage is at 3.9v.

When I plug it into a computer I hear the USB connected/disconnected sound every ~2s. Device Manager shows that USB Serial Device (COM9) connect/disconnect loops.

I tried holding the reset button + plugging in the USB power - did nothing.

Is the device borked? I waited for for it for a few months, so this is a huge bummer.

Any ideas?

2

Some progress. I double tapped the reset button, got a flashing green light. Plugged in the USB and it mounted!

I tried to re-flash the latest Meshstatic firmware (firmware-rak4631-2.4.2.5b45303.uf2) - no joy. Same behavior as originally.

INFO_UF2.TXT is

UF2 Bootloader 0.4.3
Model: WisBlock RAK4631 Board
Board-ID: WisBlock-RAK4631-Board
Date: May 20 2023
Ver: 0.4.3
SoftDevice: S140 6.1.1

I figured I’d update the bootloader, got this version: WisBlock/bootloader/RAK4630/Latest/wiscore_rak4631_board_bootloader-0.4.3_s140_6.1.1.zip at master · RAKWireless/WisBlock · GitHub

Flashed successfully.

C:\Users\XXXXXX\Downloads>adafruit-nrfutil.exe --verbose dfu serial --package wiscore_rak4631_board_bootloader-0.4.3_s140_6.1.1.zip --port COM10 -b 115200 --singlebank --touch 1200
Upgrading target on COM10 with DFU package C:\Users\XXXXXXX\Downloads\wiscore_rak4631_board_bootloader-0.4.3_s140_6.1.1.zip. Flow control is disabled, Single bank, Touch 1200
Touched serial port COM10
Opened serial port COM10
Starting DFU upgrade of type 3, SoftDevice size: 151016, bootloader size: 39000, application size: 0
Sending DFU start packet
Sending DFU init packet
Sending firmware file
########################################
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########################################
########################################
########################################
########################################
########################################
########################################
########################################
############
Activating new firmware

DFU upgrade took 21.05813956260681s
Device programmed.

Tried putting the the latest Meshtastic firmware, no joy. Behavior is identical to what I started with.

3

Well, I got it working after using the nrf_erase2.uf2 file, and re-flashing Meshtastic with firmware-rak4631-2.3.15.deb7c27.uf2

Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

Although I’m still puzzled why it died in the first place.

1 Like
4

That’s good @yegor .

The NRF Erase FW usually do the trick.

Btw, it is already in the Meshtastic Flasher. Much easier to clear flash now.

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5

Yes, that’s exactly what I used.

Will continue running the device as I did before and see what happens.

6

Hey, I have a new node that has done the exact same thing. It was working for a couple of days and then it just died. When I plug it into the client.meshtastic.org and try to view the firmware, I get “unknown” for everything. I had flashed it with 4.5.2.5b45303. Is that the same firmware you used? I was just about to mount this to the roof of my house, but now I’m second guessing. Maybe there is a bad batch?

7

you mean 2.4.2.5b45303 …

There was a recent bugfix regarding the space of the config file system. What you describe sounds like you hit this problem.

this was fixed in version 2.4.3.91d6612 and although still in alpha i recommend updating to it.

8

Thank you for sharing @caveman99 .

Welcome to RAK forum as well. Your contribution/expertise is really help here :blush: