A failed PM3 build

[jabberwalky]

I finally had time to build the PM3. Sadly, PM3 build has failed.

This was a bit of an odd one. The board is quite an old one, version 1.1.

Followed the VanDaal instructions. There is no noticeable cold joint anywhere. It will not display anything on the screen. During shipping the main board lost one of it's 100uf capacitors, so I had to put a larger (through hole) version in it's place. I don't think that is the issue though.

It will turn on the 3 leds Green/Yellow,Blue. Blue stays solid, no blinking. On the screen, I bridged the j1 connection, but that didn't work in either setting.

[jabberwalky]

Any ideas anyone? Solid blue LED. Everyone else posts about a blinking LED. Does solid indicate something? My only assumption is the touch screen is dead, and it's an expensive part.

[Xavier]

Sorry for the delay.
It the blue led stays on it means the firmware stays in the preenfm3 bootloader.
Can be because the firmware is not flashed (although the bootloader is).

Have you tried turning it on while pressing the MENU button ?
That should enter the bootloader in graphical mode.
So you should see the bootloader on the display.


Bridging J1 on the screen requires to power it with a 3.3v power.
Not sure it's possible with PCB 1.1.
It's not good to power it with 5v if J1 is bridged.

Even if the screen is broken, you should not have the blue led solid and you should get sound when paying midi.

Let me know if you find something, i have spare parts so we'll find a solution.

[jabberwalky]

Thank you for the advice and clarifications Xavier. I will dive back into it soon and report back here.

[jabberwalky]

Sorry for the delay.
It the blue led stays on it means the firmware stays in the preenfm3 bootloader.
Can be because the firmware is not flashed (although the bootloader is).

Have you tried turning it on while pressing the MENU button ?
That should enter the bootloader in graphical mode.
So you should see the bootloader on the display.


Bridging J1 on the screen requires to power it with a 3.3v power.
Not sure it's possible with PCB 1.1.
It's not good to power it with 5v if J1 is bridged.

Even if the screen is broken, you should not have the blue led solid and you should get sound when paying midi.

Let me know if you find something, i have spare parts so we'll find a solution.

I was finally able to get this working, but it took quite a bit of troubleshooting. I removed the bridged J1 on the tft for starters. Still the same outcome though. Continued to suspect this must be a software thing.

It seems with the hardware I have, I can't go beyond a certain bootloader and firmware. I can successfully load Bootloader 1.07, and firmware 0.107. After that, firmware 0.108 boots but the panel doesn't function (no buttons or knobs do anything). I figured I need to also update the bootloader dfu, so tried did this via webDFU successfully to 1.00. However, still with any booloader beyond 0.107, the panel will no longer functions and it also disabled me from loading into bootloader mode (hold menu on power up).

So.....that sucks, the new 0.108 reverbs & fx sound very interesting! Looks like I'll be opening it back up to see if the manual header swap to VCC will allow rolling it back.

Has anyone encountered this?

I'm using the very early main board rev 1.1 /144 and control board v1.0 SMD 06/2020, which I suspect may have something to do with it.