Eh...Is my Teensy 3.2 Dead?

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lerxstrulz

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Hi All,

I have a Teensy 3.2 soldered to an Audio Connector that was working fine until yesterday. I was uploading a change to the sketch, and right before it finished uploading the LED went off and since then the IDE does not see the Teensy and the LED does not come on when plugged in to power and the sketch does not start.

It's not the sketch ;) I have another exact setup and that one is working just fine with the new sketch. Things I have tried:

- different USB cables
- different laptop
- 5V battery
- holding the programming button while connecting

The weird thing is, it's definitely getting power because I have a peripheral attached to it that powers on just fine whenever I plug the Teensy into the laptop. It just can't see the serial port and nothing else happens.

Any ideas? What else to try? Any other details I can provide? Thanks in advance!
 
Once I thought I had a dead one when all that was wrong is I forgot to change to the right serial connection. That was after I got my 2nd Teensy and didn't know they seem to make their own Comm port.
 
Indeed the COMM port can change ( check the Tools / Port list ) and - at least on Windows - if using SerMon that window can need to be manually closed and re-opened to see the output

Try a simple blink sketch like here.

It will show a different blink rate - and you can edit code to modify it to change it to see it start up and blink changes when connected. There are other steps there that may help see it work.
 
defragster said:
Indeed the COMM port can change ( check the Tools / Port list ) and - at least on Windows - if using SerMon that window can need to be manually closed and re-opened to see the output

Try a simple blink sketch like here.

It will show a different blink rate - and you can edit code to modify it to change it to see it start up and blink changes when connected. There are other steps there that may help see it work.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. I am on a Macbook Pro. When I plug in the Teensy via USB it usually shows up the ports in the Arduino IDE. I tried restarting the laptop and using different USB cables. When I plug the other (working) Teensy in, it shows up in the Arduino IDE under "Tools->Port". I'm wondering if somehow the serial part of the USB port fried or something on the "non-working" one? Like I said it is definitely getting power...just no serial communication.
 
The serial connection and the USB connection are slightly different. Can you load blink to this board, or is there no connection at all?
 
As per my previous statement, teensy doesn't use serial to load code (uses USB directly). If the last program loaded didn't have serial selected as an option under the device menu then there will never be a serial port showing up on your system. Can be a source of confusion since the Teensyduino system will still allow you to Serial.begin and show you serial debug messages by sending them as USB messages and translating them in teensyduino.

That said I take it that what you mean is that 'I can't get any sort of USB communication with my device', in which case checks are pretty much what you have already done:

Check power 5.5 and 3.3V power on the board
Use a known good USB cable
Use a known good USB port, and if possible different PC

Final check is to flip it over and make sure that when you press the program button the program line really does go low by watching the program test point, and there should be a reset cycle in there as well.
https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html
While probing would also be worth a check that nothing has happened to the 33ohm USB series resistors if you have been soldering anything on that area of the board.
 
First, you should understand Teensy uses HID protocol, not serial, when programming. When you press the button on Teensy, it's supposed to appear to your Mac as a HID device. It's only serial when running a previously-loaded program that implements serial, and only if that program is running and hasn't done something like interfere with the USB port.

Press the button on your Teensy. It should appear like this (and be detected by the Teensy Loader program)

https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/check_halfkay_mac.html

If that doesn't work, try the recovery process (where you hold the button while plugging in the cable)

https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/troubleshoot.html

If that doesn't work, your Teensy might be dead. But before you conclude it's gone, disconnect all external wiring, so the USB cable is the only connection. Sometimes poor quality power can interfere with Teensy.
 
Hi Paul,

Thanks for the info and links! Before seeing your post I was looking at the board and noticed the wafer in the micro usb port was tilted down a little and higher on one end. I adjusted it back and plugged in the cable and it starting working again!

I have a couple other boards that had "died" and been replaced, and sure enough after looking at the usb port the wafers were in pretty much the same state. After adjusting them back, they started working as well. Yay!

The application I'm using them for requires frequent connecting/disconnecting of the usb (using the usb for power), so apparently I have been a little heavy-handed :/ I'm in the process of converting them to use rechargeable batteries with a power switch, so if I have to finagle the usb port every once in a while to program them that's ok.
 
Teensy 3.2 has pads on the underside for USB, so if your setup makes it useful you can get a Panel mount USB type B with tails, and solder them to the underside pads to make a much more robust USB connection. See various threads on 'I broke my teensy USB socket'
 
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