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murilopolese / kano-pixel-kit-flash-tool

Flash your Pixel Kit with MicroPython or Kano Code firmware.
MIT License
16 stars 3 forks source link

Device boot loops - Reflashing a broken device #8

Open tyeth opened 7 months ago

tyeth commented 7 months ago

Hi, a friend has this Pixel Kit (non-kickstarter edition), and tried to put micropython on it. The device appears to load with just the battery connected (~3.7v), it displays some patterns then has 3 modes to switch between using the joystick/buttons. The patterns it displays, and the fact it ignores the two front buttons when powered on, suggested to me that it's running micropython already. It doesn't appear to present a network, and I have no idea the original configuration.

Unfortunately when I connect a USB cable (micro-B) to the device and my computer, a serial port appears, but the problem is the device stays on for about 3seconds before restarting, in a continuous loop, so getting the flash tool / serial monitor to connect / stay connected is near impossible. Is this a known fault? Any suggestions on things to check?

Also I'm semi-experienced with the esp32's / esptool, but I can't seem to find the boot0 button. It looks like there's a via and a pull up resistor (~4.5k) coming from the left bottom-most pin (I think that's GPIO-0). Is removing that resistor the only way to get into bootloader mode? There is a button on the back of the board, but it appears to not affect the boot/serial.

Also, thanks for creating this, it looks like a lot of people got value from it!

(p.s. on a side note, any idea the USB situation, is that hub chip connected to a usb host chip (driven over uart) or is that just the usb-serial converter required to talk to the esp? What were the official things to plug into the pixel kit?)

goglesquirmintontheiii commented 6 months ago

If at all possible, I would try using this to connect to it in that 3 second window and then quickly hitting CTRL+C or CTRL+D in the terminal if it connects.

As for the USB situation, from my testing, it just allows the Kano to act as a USB hub. Plugging in the microB will cause any devices plugged into the USB ports on the top to just connect to the computer itself, rather than the Kano. There may be some way to access them from the esp32, but I have not yet found a way to do that.

Hope this helps ^^