HeaterMeter Build Help


 

Bry Adams

New member
I built an HM 4.3 and am having difficulty powering up. My initial power up resulted in only the Green and Yellow LED's lighting up. The LCD did not show anything except the contrast lines. I went back through and reflowed all solder points looking for cold solder points. Tried restarting and have Green, Yellow and the RP red light illuminated and nothing else.

I am posting images in hopes of finding an answer.


11tvsw8.jpg
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The images are too small to be able to zoom in on them.

Did you power it up attached to the Raspberry Pi? If not, this needs to happen as the Pi is needed to load the code onto the ATMEGA chip.
 
Check continuity on consecutive pins of the rPi header and the ATMega looking for shorts. Someone recently had a similar problem and it turned out some pins were shorted out by excess solder on the component side of the board (where it is hard or impossible to see).
 
I zoomed in on the images you currently have posted and it looks like you don't have the ATMEGA chip fully seated. It should be pushed all the way down into the socket.

RS137dk.jpg
 
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Thermocouple pit probe is an OPTION on all HM builds, I dont see the SMD TC amp parts on your board so no, you shouldn't have a TC jack, you should have a standard probe jack in the probe 0 position. That is unless you plan to install the smd stuff yourself.
 
Does the RasPi boot? Have you managed to get to the web config in it or hooked it up to a TV/Monitor to see the text console output?
 
IDK if anyone mentioned, one common mistake that will make the ATMega not program is if you put the wrong part in the 3.3v regulator spot. You should have a MCP1700-33 in the IC4 slot. It looks just like the BS170 transistors, but the printing will show the MCP1700-33 number instead of BS170.
 
IDK if anyone mentioned, one common mistake that will make the ATMega not program is if you put the wrong part in the 3.3v regulator spot. You should have a MCP1700-33 in the IC4 slot. It looks just like the BS170 transistors, but the printing will show the MCP1700-33 number instead of BS170.

Ralph thanks for your help. I checked IC4 and found that the MCP1700 was in the correct spot. I do not have another probe jack for the Thermocouple Probe Jack. I will be cleaning with alcohol tonight and trying to restart again tomorrow.
 
Spring Break is finally here for me. I got around to tracing the board and found some wrong voltages. I did go back and check all voltage regulators to make sure they were in the correct spot. I am adding two pictures in hopes of finding a solution. Thanks for your help.

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Odd you report only 3V at the 3.3v regulator but 3.2V at the ATMega, makes me think perhaps your ground connection on your meter, or meter in general is flaky. At any rate, it seems your v-regs are working, 12v, 5v, 3v...
If I recall correctly your HM never really came to life, nothing on the screen etc. In that scenario you could have a few things going on. You could have an ATMega that hasn't flashed for some reason, that would likely be a solder issue either on the ATMega socket or the rPi Header. I've heard people getting too much solder on the rPi socket and having shorts on the component side of the board, so you might check adjacent pins the the rpi header for shorts. On the other hand, your ATMega could be flashed and HM actually working but have a display issue. Did you scan for a HEATERMETER hotspot with a wifi device? Does the wifi dongle or LED's on the rPi flash?
 
Odd you report only 3V at the 3.3v regulator but 3.2V at the ATMega, makes me think perhaps your ground connection on your meter, or meter in general is flaky.

Sorry it was 3.2 at the regulator. I'll go back and check all the grounds.....UGHHHHHH I just wish this thing would work. On spring break and my back yard should be full of smoke!
 
I wouldn't worry about the voltage readings, looks like you've got you 12V, 5V and 3.3v, so power supply seems to be in order.

One thing you left out of your posting so far is your rPi, what version are you running?

When you build a HM the ATMega is blank, so your HM will do nothing. When you power your HM with a rPi connected the HM software see's the blank ATMega and flashes the HM firmware to it, THEN you have a working HM. So, you see, your problem could be your rPi is not loading the HM software for whatever reason, OR you have a HM hardware issue.

I've found the micro SD cards to be more finicky than regular SD cards. My rPi zeroW came with a microSD with raspian preloaded, WinDiskImager said it wrote the HM image successfully but the HM software didn't load. Checking the router I see the rPi grabbed an IP, but no HM web page there... head scratcher! I noticed the rPi didn't grab the standard HM IP, which sparked a thought, looks like raspian is loading? So I put the card back in my PC and sure enough the drive had the factory raspian files on it still. IDK WHY, but it did. So I wrote it again, this time took a look at the card in windows before I pulled it, saw the HM folder structure was there... NOW it works perfectly! I can't explain why it didn't work the first time, it said the write was successful....

At any rate, point being, you want to make sure your rPi is booting up the HM software before you assume its a hardware issue. The rPi will actually load the HM code and function on its own without the HM connected[, you just wont see any temperatures reported. Have you tried to connect to the HM software on the rPI? You should be able to do that if your rPi is loading the HM code properly. Or you can plug a monitor into the rPi and see what is going on directly.

EDIT: perhaps I spoke out of tern... I just removed the rPi A+ from the HM I had handy and it doesn't seem to load the HM software on it's own. I am pretty certain it DID when I tried that with my rPi B. So it might not be a sure bet that the HM software will load without the HM board connected. Activity on the wifi dongle LED's is a good indicator of life of some sort on the rPi.
 
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I wouldn't worry about the voltage readings, looks like you've got you 12V, 5V and 3.3v, so power supply seems to be in order.

One thing you left out of your posting so far is your rPi, what version are you running?



EDIT: perhaps I spoke out of tern... I just removed the rPi A+ from the HM I had handy and it doesn't seem to load the HM software on it's own. I am pretty certain it DID when I tried that with my rPi B. So it might not be a sure bet that the HM software will load without the HM board connected. Activity on the wifi dongle LED's is a good indicator of life of some sort on the rPi.


Ralph I'm using an rPi A+. I reimaged my sd card and got the rPi running. Got a green flashing light and wifi dongle is flashing. Still no luck with the HM. I do see HM when I search for signals on my computer. I saw in your comment that your A+ would not load the HM. What did you do to get that to happen.

I desperate now....I have a brisket on my Ugly Drum for a 12 hour soak. Would like to us the HM. Oh well its nice out at 40F:wsm:
 
If you scan for wifi hotspots and see HEATERMETER then use a wireless device to connect to that hotspot. Once connected look at the details for the connection, then put what is listed as the Gateway IP into a browser and try to connect. The HM web interface should load, at which point you can log into the config and see if the HM is working (if temps are displayed). If you get -- instead of NO PIT PROBE or a temp reading then go to Config/AVR Firmware and attempt to re-flash the ATMega.... or post back more details about how far you get or don't get with the login to the rPi....
 
Ralph I got into the web interface and got ---. I tried getting into configuration and it's asking for a password. Played around a bit and got to the config...I think. Reflashed and got this error.

Stopping LinkMeter OK

LinkMeter platform is BCM2708
AVR fuses ffd705 OK

4fc4fc676d1f0595d5f2aba814c09213 /tmp/hm.hex
hmdude: invalid record at line 33140 of "/tmp/hm.hex"
hmdude: compiled on Feb 26 2016 at 10:47:11
Using port: /dev/spidev0.0
Update successful
Starting LinkMeter OK

Do I unplug and reboot or did I do something wrong. It asked for a password as well. I'm a NOOB with this stuff so I'm in the dark with this.
 
The hm.hex file shouldn't have any errors. My guess would be the image is/has become corrupt on the SD card. Format the SD card and re-write the image to it.
 
Ok I have tried reformating SD card over and over. I am now able to get my rPi A+ online and with access to my network. Still no connection to HM. I have tried the following....

1. LinkMeter tab
2. Click on AVR Firmware
3. Online repository
4. Flash version 4.x release/bcm2708/13/heatermeter.hex
5. I get the following....

Downloading 'http://heatermeter.com/devel/release/bcm2708/13/heatermeter.hex'
Connecting to 104.223.92.144:80
Writing to '/tmp/hm.hex'

/tmp/hm.hex 100% |*******************************| 67816 0:00:00 ETA
Download completed (67816 bytes)
Stopping LinkMeter OK

LinkMeter platform is BCM2708
Loading SPI modules...
AVR fuses ffd705 OK

8c68546835e5011e4544742642e401aa /tmp/hm.hex
hmdude: compiled on Apr 5 2017 at 13:17:14
Using port: /dev/spidev0.0
Loading ihex file: "/tmp/hm.hex" (24106 bytes)

0% | | 0 (0.0s)
0% | | 0 (0.0s)
5% |## | 1206 (0.1s)
10% |##### | 2412 (0.2s)
15% |####### | 3616 (0.3s)
20% |########## | 4822 (0.4s)
25% |############ | 6028 (0.5s)
30% |############### | 7232 (0.7s)
35% |################# | 8438 (0.8s)
40% |#################### | 9644 (0.9s)
45% |###################### | 10848 (1.0s)
50% |######################### | 12054 (1.1s)
55% |########################### | 13260 (1.2s)
60% |############################## | 14464 (1.3s)
65% |################################ | 15670 (1.4s)
70% |################################### | 16876 (1.5s)
75% |##################################### | 18080 (1.6s)
80% |######################################## | 19286 (1.8s)
85% |########################################## | 20492 (1.9s)
90% |############################################# | 21696 (2.0s)
95% |############################################### | 22902 (2.1s)
100% |##################################################| 24106 (2.2s)
Update successful
Starting LinkMeter OK


Am I on the right track. Still have a blank LCD. I can adjust the contrast but do not see No Pit Probe and green LED is lit.
 

 

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