Can it be revived? - LoRa 32 V3

#1

Hello. Looking for help.

I have a LoRa 32 V3 that currently appears to be in a non functioning state. It only blinks orange one time as you give it power. But sometimes the orange will blink continuously after a couple of power cycles. It entered this state after a reboot. It does not respond to serial port, and the screen is not on and blank. It’s in a Heltec case with a standard antenna,

It’s a new unit but was functioning a a week ago when received. I have swapped, usb cable, power, antenna, and tried to access it on several computers via serial. The onboard buttons appear to have no impact on the units state, including when giving it power. I have other LoRa 32 V3’s and they all function and are accessible on the same equipment.

If the orange didn’t blink I would consider it fried. Wondering what it’s trying to tell me. Is this unit dead?

#2

Try holding down the PRG button, dabbing the RST button, then you should have put it in boot loader mode.

Then upload a very very simple sketch to test with that doesn’t require anything connected - such as the Arduino Serial sketch from Basics.

If no joy, come back here and we can talk about capturing the bootloader message to see if that bit is alive.

#3

Thank you. No Joy. Arduino IDE appears to sense when the device is plugged in. The serial monitor will report it’s connected or not connected. But then fails to upload. “Failed uploading: uploading error: exit status 2”

#4

OK, next step is pretty similar.

Have it hooked up & the Arduino IDE serial open and then do the PRG / RST two press as above. On my V3 I get:

ESP-ROM:esp32s3-20210327
Build:Mar 27 2021
rst:0x1 (POWERON),boot:0x0 (DOWNLOAD(USB/UART0))
waiting for download

Give it a couple of goes if nothing appears at first. This tells us if the chip’s boot loader, a program burnt in that can’t be altered, is activating.

After that it’s going to be a fair amount of effort to try stuff out (check the push buttons, check the signal at the MCU) - may be disproporate to just buying a new one.