Finished, but no display


 

D. Treacher

New member
I finished my heatermeter, but the LCD wont light up. I'll check my soldering, but any ideas how to diagnose further. The rPi seems to light up with a solid red and flashing green light. Also, the heatermeter red and yellow leds are on. I'm sure I'll figure out the problem, just a matter of time, but any help would be appreciated.
 
If the LEDs are on on the HeaterMeter on, then something is way wrong. Only the red should blink twice once the HeaterMeter firmware is installed, which it is not yet. They should not even blink at all when you plug the power in. If the rPi is blinking red and green, that's a fault condition. The Pi that I fried by hooking 12V to the 5V input does that.
 
Dave: I adjusted the pot, but it looks like I have more issues than that according to Bryan.

Bryan: Thanks, I'll start with the rPi and build back up from there. I used the micro USB connection, so I was only giving it 5V (as suggested in the Heatermeter assembly page).
 
No RJ, haven't flashed the AVR. I'll get around to more this weekend. This is a fun project, and I'm in no hurry. Have a DigiQ II to fall back on.
 
Ah, that's it. Before the heatermeter will function, you need to flash the firmware onto it. Goto the Linkmeter tab, then AVR Firmware, then Online repository and pick which one you want, probably snapshots/trunk/heatermeter.hex
 
Oops I just wiped out my post my mistake. Welp the gist was that those LEDs won't light up unless they're sourced power from the shift register. For that to happen it data would have to be clocked in and latched, which isn't something that happens randomly. It isn't the sort of thing that happens just because the software hasn't been loaded.

But yeah the fact that the rPi blinks red and green is really a bad omen.
 
My rpi has the red light on and the green light flickers while the OS loads, is that what you mean or is the green light flashing on and off at a steady rate and doesn't stop flashing? Have you tried getting into the the web interface via the ethernet port?
 
It may be something similar to what Lukas was experiencing here and fixed here:
rPi bootloader issue

The old bootloader works fine on all my boards, but something about some of the new model Bs might be messing it up? This demands further investigations. I've played with using the new bootloader on my boards and it doesn't seem to like the configuration so I'm going to continue to work on it. Try replacing the two bootloader files as Lukas did and see if that makes things work.
 
Thanks for the followup Bryan.

Still lurking and learning.

I'll read up on that thread, and keeping an eye on this one too.

I should have some time this weekend to try to figure it out.
 
Strange, I finally got round to hooking it up to my TV (didn't have an HDMI cable and clipped the RCA off the RPi because it got too much in the way for my liking) and the it booted into wheezy no problem. Thought I'd flash openwrt and connect things up again ... Presto, a working Heatermeter.

I'll revisit more on the weekend and if everything is still good, post a picture of the materpiece.
 
Done. Must have hit the right solder point when I was making sure I didn't have any shorts or cold joints. Either a cold solder joint or a low voltage short somewhere, but couldn't see it.

Here she is ...

IMG_9522.jpg


Still a couple of things to clean up for fan attachment, but it works and I can see the server. Wonderful piece of hardware. Thanks to all who contributed.
 

 

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