Do I have a bad digispark?

[Frankenbeans]

2 of 3 work great. The third, well, not so much...

I've followed the getting started guide, installed (on windows) just fine. To test the boards I used the sample sketch from the guide, the one that blinks the LED.

Boards 1 & 2: Click upload, compiling magic happens, plug in board when prompted, get patented windows "Device Plugged In" sound, upload magic happens, and about a second later the LED starts to blink.

Board #3: Upload click, gears crunch, plug in board when prompted, get Plugin sound, upload magic happens, and............ nada.

I've tried this a few times, different ports etc. Sometimes I'll get the Device Attached sound, immediately followed by the Detached sound, followed by the Attached sound again, and then the upload does its magic, sometimes it acts like the other 2 boards.

There are no obvious physical problems, and the board is *mostly* working. Its obviously speaking "real imitation USB" and getting the sketch, but it's just not quite all there...

Advice?

[digistump]

@Frakenbeans - you very well might have a defective unit (right now our defective rate is at 0.2% but they do happen).

If you plug it in and don\'t try to upload to it at all does it start blinking after 5 seconds?

When you upload to it does it say:

writing: 100% complete
>> Micronucleus done. Thank you!

at the end?

[Frankenbeans]

Just for giggles I took it and plugged it into another machine to see if it would start blinking. No blinking though.

Yup, the upload completes and I get the nice little thank you message.

A 0.2% fail rate is not bad at all.

Oh, you probably know this already, but these little guys don\'t seem to like USB 3.0. I\'ve tested (the working sparks) on my laptop with USB 3.0, and on a USB 3.0 hub on a different machine. They get power, but you can\'t talk to them. Not a big deal to me, but something that might crop up from someone else.

[digistump]

@Frankenbeans - can you send me an email at support at digistump dot com with your email address, name and if possible, order id - we\'ll get you fixed up with a new one.

Some USB 3.0 ports do seem to have that issue, strange thing is I have tested them working with several USB 3 ports and Hubs - but we\'ll keep working to address that in future models.

[Zenzizenzizenzic]

I can report no joy on all 3 of the Asus Zenbook Prime USB3.0 ports (UX32VD-DB71)

[Bluebie]

@Zenzizenzizenzic Can you have a look at those ports and see if the plastic prong in the middle seems to be further back from the outside of the case as it is on other older ports on other computers? I\'ve been trying to figure this one out and at least for the recently released 13\" Macbook Pro retina with USB 3.0 ports, the ports are much deeper in to the body of the machine and almost certainly not reaching the data lines on the digispark\'s connector.

A short USB extension cable would be a good way to test if it is a mechanical problem, and is just nicer for using with the digisparks anyway

[Zenzizenzizenzic]

No dice - still won't recognize the thing - I performed the same setup on my desktop and it worked no issues.

[digistump]

@Zenzizenzizenzic - in addition to the issues of many USB 3.0 ports being set in too far, I'm starting to believe that some USB 3.0 controllers just don't work with the Digispark, likely because the USB 3.0 spec allows for a lower voltage - in fact many devices including some very very high end audio equipment have been reported to have issues with some USB 3.0 controllers.


Have you tried a hub?

[Zenzizenzizenzic]

Yep a USB 2.0 hub totally fixes it.  The desktop machine I've also tried (and had it succeed with) doesn't have USB 3.0 ports.  On my laptop I believe that I've only tried to use the Digispark after installing the Intel drivers and only in Windows 8.  I don't know if changing either of those variables would change the equation (though with Win 7 not having baked in USB 3 support I suspect it would play nicely as the ports would be treated as USB 2.0)

[dougal]

One of my 3 Digisparks has a bad on-board LED (though the power LED works). Other than the lack of LED, it seems to be functioning, though. I was able to send/receive via DigiUSB using the example python scripts.

[digistump]

@Dougal - if you'd like to send in the one with a bad led for replacement you can email me support at digistump dot com

[dougal]

I know it's been over a month, but I just wanted to let you know, I don't plan to trade in my "bad" spark. Other than the onboard LED not lighting up, it's fine. And I was going to need to cut the LED trace on at least one of them eventually anyways, and this saved me the trouble! I've been using that spark with my LCD shield, and it works just dandy.