Issues with WiFi LoRa 32 Expansion Kit

#1

Hi,

I received the kit a couple days ago (including. touch display, without battery). I added a brand new Panasonic battery, connected it to USB-C power (high-power cable and charger made by Anker). Some observations:

  • There’s no charging indicator at all?
  • After turning on (3 hours charging time, with and without charger still connected) the device is stuck in a boot loop (shows Meshtastic logo and reboots after a couple seconds)
  • Boot loop eventually stops after 5-20 rounds
  • Connecting to Wifi works but is very unstable (disconnects often)
  • The Meschtastic Android app sees the device in the network but is not able to connect (infinite progress)
  • The device is not visible let alone accessible over BLE, shouldn’t it? I didn’t spot a Bluetooth setting in the Touch UI

Summary: I am unable to use the device. This is my third Meshtastic device (the one first from Heltec) and it’s the worst experience I ever had with a Meshtastic device.

Any advise? Thanks in advance!

Meshtastic version on Heltec v4: v2.7.14
Android app: v2.7.13

#2

Not a user of the Expansion kit myself, but a regular viewer of the forum.
Heltec has a track record of releasing good hardware but absolutely lacking the documents and software support for the first few months. Especially with the success of their V3 line-up, they’ve since eagerly released some new stuff or updated versions that just don’t work out in the wild yet.

My most honest advice, you’ve got two options:

  1. Get in touch with customer support and/or Meshtastic community, dig in, and resolve the issues yourself for you and everyone else to enjoy, or
  2. Leave the device on the shelf for a month or so, let someone else do option 1 and you’ll have a working setup.

Hopefully the LNY holiday gives Heltec some enthusiasm to improve on the software support, or they’ll throw in this year’s additional Horse-power to work on it.

#3

Hi,

Leave the device on the shelf for a month or so

That’s basically what I’m going to do, since I can’t spend too much time on it currently. OTOH, I am not sure if every issue I experienced is really software-only. Sure, you can have a boot loop introduced by software flaws, but there are potential pitfalls on the hardware side as well. For example, the Heltec v4 seems to be quite power hungry. If I add a touch screen, that’s probably too much for the battery or the PMU? And how many other devices you know of that do not even have a charging indicator?

But yeah, we’ll see.

Thanks for chiming in!

-Andreas

#4

Hey, bad puns are the domain of us over the Canal!

Heltec ran most of a competition, just not the results, moved offices, released the MeshPocket Qi2, LoRa 32 v4 and the MeshTower, all three of which it is almost impossible to know if they work based on the intractable issues raised here that just drift as people hack about on solutions with no real input from staff.

Hopefully they won’t implode under the weight of the accumulated technical debt as I rather like & recommend:

  • Heltec LoRa 32 v3.x, preferably v3.2
  • Heltec Tracker

and the CT-62 as long as you use Quik low melting point solder so the board doesn’t self-destruct under a hot air gun or SMD oven.

Perhaps having fallen at the last hurdle, they can get back on the horse and get their act together.

#5

That depends on the software running on the board. For instance, measuring the battery voltage using OUTPUT, HIGH can consume tens of milliamps, while INPUT_PULLUP costs just a few microamps. Really, I can tell you the hardware is OK, but as long as Heltec is slow with the schematics and software, we have to guess and you’ll end up with a poorly performing product.

There’s an LED next to the USB connector that lights up when a battery is connected and something is connected to 5V (USB cable or something feeding into the 5V pin).

#6

There’s an LED next to the USB connector that lights up when a battery is connected

Thanks! I wish they would’ve considered this when designing the case.

#7

Although I do agree, Heltec offers a platform to make your own case :wink:

#8

Dunno why I’m posting this as I don’t have a v4, just say’n

Ta Da! :partying_face: https://resource.heltec.cn/download/WiFi_LoRa_32_V4/Schematic/WiFi_LoRa_32_V4.2.pdf

#9

But no where near the charge circuit, you’ll find it bottom right. Could have been placed where the 恒流充电电流 is, which could move up.

#10

Hi everyone

Same issues, I am using this Expansion Kit since couple of months. Recently - problems with boot looping started.

Today I flashed the newest firmware (2.7.15 I guess) available for it but it didn’t fix the issue.

Device works for couple of hours, then reboots itself couple of times and finally it remains dead until you hit the reset button.

Anyone is able to answer following questions:

  1. Anyone else faced similar problem?
  2. How to upload map files to it? It doesn’t have SD slot?
  3. Is it possible to manage this node in any other way than touch screen? BLE? WiFi? I can’t imagine configuring custom channels and typing the keys using touch keyboard :smile: