Need help - oak not connecting at powerup

[nabla]

Hi everyone, I apologize if this topic has already been treated.

Yesterday I turned on for the first time my OAK, purchased in kickstarter campaign.
I waited several weeks since I received it, to wait for software development to stabilize.

After spending hours of frustration to connect the OAK for first connection and firmware update (following tutorials), this morning I finally have done it.

The trick i found was to turn off my computer and do everything from my old phone Android (4.2)
Perhaps the management of these wireless devices is more "simple" compared to a PC with Windows 10. Yesterday I tried all the solutions I found on tutorials and on this forum but nothing had worked.

After finally updated the firmware and saw the OAK in the device list of Particle, I followed the tutorial for Arduino (blink led example sketch - Arduino 1.6.7)

I got this error


OakCLI tool version 1.0.2
Using config file at: C:\Users\marco_000\AppData\Roaming\oak\config.json
Sending file to cloud, to flash OAK001 (Device ID:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)

Error : An error occurred while flashing the device:



Now the Oak died. There's no way to do it connect to the network.
LED P1 is perpetually off

I also tried to turn-on OAK by P1 shorting to ground, I did it several times, but never  has changed. No connection, no P1 led blink

I noticed that sometimes, powering OAK, the led "power" remain OFF. I tried several power supply, ad checked voltage: voltage is OK but led "power" randomly remain off.
I need to wait a few minutes, then power-up the OAK: power led is ON but P1 OFF (not blinking). OAK neither connects to my Wi-Fi or generate his own Wi-Fi network.

Do you have any advice for me?
It was also for you an experience so dramatic to use the OAK?

For now I'm very disappointed
Two days and not even able to blink an LED!

[PeterF]

Sorry to hear that nabla, that certainly isn't the experience Erik would have wanted for new users!

Ok, so configuring via your phone being the best option isn't any surprise... that has been the most reliable method for both myself and several other users. Configuring by a PC has been flakey at best, but it was really just the first update process that was the most temperamental... everything has been mostly compatible/stable after the initial firmware (which was really just a placeholder download-the-real-firmware-on-first-boot firmware).

The Oak appearing on the Particle Dashboard (should start calling it Particle 'Console' now, shouldn't I  ) was a good sign that everything was working well. What is a problem is the main power LED not working. From the schematic on the wiki (and also experience using the Oak), there is nothing that should make that go out except for the power being shorted, something wrong with the input power supply, or heaven-forbid... some sort of catastrophic failure. It is pretty simple - the input power goes through a diode to protect against reverse voltage, directly into the regulator, and the output of the regulator goes to the Oaks MCU (the ESP8266/ESP12). The power led is connected directly to the output from the regulator, so if the LED goes out, it means there is something really wrong going on.

Are you able to measure the voltage coming out of the VIN and VCC connections (easiest to measure at on the three connections just behind the USB socket - you have GND, VCC and VIN all in the one spot. I get 4.60v on the VIN pin, and 3.28v on the VCC pin when running from a un-powered USB hub, and the Oak is running just fine. When I run from a USB powerbank, VCC remains the same (3.28v), which is good, and VIN is 5.02v.

If you have a 3.3v compatible USB to serial adaptor, you can connect it to the Oak with TX of the adaptor on P3 (Oak RX), and RX of the adaptor on P4 (Oak TX), and GND to GND. Connect to the adapters serial port at 74880 baud (yes, it is a strange rate, but Arduino IDE serial monitor does support it, thankfully), and see if if the OakBoot bootloader is still loading when the Oak powers up. At least you will know the Oak isn't dead. If you have a 5v USB adaptor, you can still use it, but only use it's RX line - do not connect it's TX line to the Oak.

Next thing to check would be the power consumption of the Oak. It should be consuming around 70ma on the USB port. If you have some sort of usb power monitor/meter that would be the easiest way to check.

Of the OakBoot loader works, but the Oak doesn't connect to your wireless or particle, then you would need to consider resetting the Oak using the OakRestore process. You will need a 3.3v compatible USB to serial adaptor at this point, as you need to use the TX line to upload the firmware to the Oak.

I'll stop there, as that is probably enough information overload for now!