Anyone know a fix for V3s with a dim orange light and a weak signal? Also what causes this?
Let’s start with basic troubleshooting – can you share how it’s wired right now, and to what power source?
24V power supply > 5V via buck converter reading 5V output. 3.3A. Build hundreds of units this exact way so it’s not the wiring. Tried using micro usb as well as backfeeding through screw terminal block just to be sure, same result. Seen it happen a few times and usually just discard the chip but curious to know causes the issue and if there’s a fix.
If you enabled the WiFi power save mode, the LED will go dim and WiFi will be disabled. Long pressing the button will temporarily enable WiFi, until the next power cycle. You’ll need to turn that off in settings to keep WiFi enabled.
If your LEDs aren’t doing anything, then it might be a brown out / power issue, and might need a power cycle to come back.
Running into this again (dim orange light, loading cube forever won’t connect) so I suspect the wifi disable button got pressed by accident but when I reset the controller and it lets me connect via AP mode it Client Mode but once connected it still will not load once for me to access the settings to even check the wifi disable button. What else could be the issue?
If the LED is dimmer than usual, it is in WiFi disable mode. Hold the button for 5 seconds to turn WiFi on. The LED will flash twice. WiFi disable mode setting has not been changed permanently though, and will be off again on next power cycle, so you want to get to settings to disable it.
However, if it was not in wifi disable mode, it will switch to setup mode. The LED will flash more than twice.
You can also configure settings in AP mode, which might be handy if the PB is having trouble connecting to the router, and can be used to verify that WiFi is working normally and not obscured by metal, wires, cases, etc.
So to follow up with this I’ve confirmed that these controllers (I have a small pile of them) are not in WiFi disable mode because when I hold to reset it takes them all back to setup mode. The issue with all of them is no matter if I choose AP or client mode, is they will not load even once, they are all stuck on reading, configuring.
Like I said I have a handful of them that are all like this, some old some not that old. Do you think that they may be physically damaged in any way to not connect like that? Or is there something else I’m missing or could do to get them loading again.
I always just assume these have something physically wrong with them like maybe a power surge or something that fried it but it seems unlikely that so many would have that issue and also it still powers on, gives a strong wifi signal and lets me go through setup mode perfectly fine to it seems like the chip is in good working condition.
If you are getting that far, I wouldn’t think they are damaged.
If possible, make sure they are running on a recent version. Very old versions can make page loading issues worse.
AP mode should work just as well as WiFi setup. In both cases the PB is hosting the Wi-Fi network and loading the same app/page (just with some of the interface hidden).
When testing AP mode, be sure you are picking a new, non existing network name. Some phones will ask to disconnect since they don’t detect internet access through the Pixelblaze’s WiFi network. It can help to turn off cell data temporarily when using a PB in AP mode.
Since WiFi setup seems to work, I’m assuming that the PB isn’t broken, and the problem is likely signal issues to the router.
Try completely removing them from your power, enclosures, and LEDs, and power them straight off of USB from the same location you want it but still disconnected from everything.
If it can’t load then the issue is likely WiFi signal strength/quality to the router. Installing a repeater can help.
However if that worked, then there is likely something about the system it was installed in that is causing WiFi signal strength issues. A repeater nearby could also help punch through whatever is causing the problem, but ideally the root cause should be fixed.
@wizard is there a state machine diagram for all this somewhere?
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