Notecarrier F - Notecard not detected

1

Hi,

So I tried to migrate from the Notecarrier AF to the Notecarrier F. I moved the notecard and Swan over to the Notecarrier F and now it seems that the Swan is not able to communicate with the Notecard at all. I will start digging around but any thoughts welcome.

Thanks,
Serge

2

Hi Guys,

Do you have a document describing the differences between the Notecarrier AF and the Notecarrier F ? For example on the AF when you powered the boards via the USB of the Swan (during development) and would reset the Swan it would reset the Notecard. This no longer seems to be the case with the F. I was under the impression the F would be a drop in replacement to the AF but it does not seem to be the case.

Additionally the I2C communication does not work. I will swap out the Notecarrrier F for another to see if maybe its defective.

Thanks,
Serge

1 Like
3

So tried another Notecarrier F and that did not solve the problem. Am I missing something super obvious here ?

Thanks

4

Hi @ssozonoff ,

That’s troubling to hear!

Would you mind to share a picture of the top of your Notecarrier-F, with the Notecard and Feather (optional) plugged in?

Also, can you provide the code you are expecting to work?

Thanks,
Zak

5

Hi,

I will still check the Swan to make sure it does not have an issue and then I will be out of ideas.

Here is picture of the board with the various components fitted.

IMG_0047
IMG_00471920Ă—2560 645 KB

Regarding the code its the same code I have been running on the Notecarrier AF with a Swan + Notecard for well over a year.

Nothing special, I call begin during setup with no parameters.

notecard.begin();

Thanks,
Serge

6

Hi Serge,

I don’t understand how you’re powering the device. It has no battery or wires connected to your terminal blocks.

Can you hook it up, so that it looks like it does when it’s failing?

Also, it looks like you are leveraging the ATTN pin to power on/off the Swan, is that intentional? I know it’s a silly question, but it’s hard to say without seeing the firmware.

Thanks,
Zak

P.S. Just a random aside, but where did you get those 0.1" terminal blocks - can you share the link? They look awesome! I have never seen them, and all my terminal blocks are too big.

7

Hi Zak,

So with the Notecarrier AF and during development I power the system via the USB of the Swan which simplifies the Dev process. In production its powered via a Lipo cell from the Battery JST connector.

With the Notecarrier F I have tried both of the above and the combination of the above and it makes no difference.

Using the ATTN pin for turning the Swan on/off is from the notecard is intentional; only with the AF I had to solder a wire between the pins which is not required anymore with the F.

Here is a picture of the AF setup I had and now the F. As you can see I had to do some frankenstien mods to get the AF to do what hopefully the F will do without the mods.

IMG_0048
IMG_00481920Ă—1440 505 KB

The terminal blocks I got here

Thanks,
Serge

8

After a cursory glance, that all looks to be correct.

Just to confirm, you are stating the Swan and the Notecard are not communicating correctly, before plugging in the external sensor on the Qwiic ports, correct?

~Zak

9

Hi Zak,

So it seems it was an issue with the Swan board itself. This was a new Swan I pulled out of its pakaging so was not expecting that one. I grabbed another one and it works now. I will do some power measurements now to see what the sleep current looks like.

Thanks,
Serge

10

OK I revert my last message … its still not working… :frowning:

Too add some color I am seeing

notecard not responding

Which seems to come from the Arduino Notecard Lib.

11

Can you confirm that blues.io have tested a Swan 1.7 with a notecard 1.5 in combination with the Notecarrier-F V1.0 ?

Because this should simply work.

Thanks,
Serge

12

Seems like every once in a while after several resets it may work but its extremely flakey.
Here you see it fail the first time and then after I hit the reset button on the Swan it works.

setup
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
calling hub.set
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
notecard not responding
response null for env.get
notecard not responding
response null for env.get
wind sample count : 60
sleep time in seconds : 840
notecard not responding
setup done

setup
{“req”:“card.attn”}
{“set”:true}
{“req”:“card.motion.mode”,“start”:true}
{“start”:true}
{“req”:“card.voltage”,“mode”:“lipo”}
{“minutes”:1,“mode”:“usb”,“value”:5.056011272222583}
{“req”:“card.carrier”,“mode”:“charging”}
{“mode”:“charging”}
calling hub.set
{“req”:“hub.set”,“product”:“xxx”,“mode”:“periodic”,“voutbound”:“usb:10;high:60;normal:60;low:180;dead:0”,“vinbound”:“usb:10;high:60;normal:60;low:180;dead:0”,“body”:{“agent”:“note-arduino”,“compiler”:“gcc 10.2.1 20201103 (release)”,“req_interface”:“i2c”,“cpu_name”:“stm32”}}
{}
{“req”:“env.default”,“name”:“SLEEP_TIME_S”,“text”:“840”}
{“time”:2}
{“req”:“env.default”,“name”:“WIND_SAMPLE_COUNT”,“text”:“60”}
{“time”:2}
{“req”:“env.get”,“name”:“SLEEP_TIME_S”}
{“text”:“540”,“time”:2}
{“req”:“env.get”,“name”:“WIND_SAMPLE_COUNT”}
{“text”:“60”,“time”:2}
wind sample count : 0
sleep time in seconds : 0
{“req”:“card.temp”,“seconds”:0}
{“seconds”:540,“value”:28.8125,“calibration”:-1.0}
setup done

13

Serge,

Which version of the Swan are you using in your test (e.g. v1.5, v1.7, v3.0)?

Thanks,
Zak

14

Hi Zak,

Both the 1.5 and 1.7

Thanks,
Serge

1 Like
15

Hi again Serge,

Sorry for not thinking to ask earlier, but which Notecard do you have, and what version of firmware are you running?

It’s all detailed in the output from {"req":"card.version"}.

Thanks,
Zak

16 
> {"req":"card.version"}
{
 "version": "notecard-3.4.1.15128",
 "device": "dev:864475046553367",
 "name": "Blues Wireless Notecard",
 "sku": "NOTE-NBGL-500",
 "board": "1.11",
 "api": 3,
 "body": {
  "org": "Blues Wireless",
  "product": "Notecard",
  "version": "notecard-3.4.1",
  "ver_major": 3,
  "ver_minor": 4,
  "ver_patch": 1,
  "ver_build": 15128,
  "built": "Aug 11 2022 18:38:27"
 }
}
17

Hi @ssozonoff ,

I was able to reproduce this issue with the Swan v1.5 (still researching), but not the Swan v1.7.

I believe the failures you are seeing with the Swan v1.7 stem from where you are powering your device.

If you power the device from the USB connector labelled NOTECARD USB, then everything should work. If you are attempting to power the device via the Swan’s USB connector, then you will experience the I2C failures you are seeing.

The Notecarrier-F was reworked to support the ultra low-power mode of the Notecard, and it will disconnect the I2C lines when the ATTN pin is LOW. Disconnecting the I2C lines prevents the pull-ups on the Swan’s I2C from slowly draining battery.

Can you confirm you are powering the Notecarrier-F via the NOTECARD USB port?

Thanks,
Zak

1 Like
18

Hi Zak,

I have the problem with both the Swan 1.5 and 1.7.

I can confirm that I have tried powering the notecard both via a Lipo battery and via the Notecard’s USB port. Neither solves the problem.

Only remaining difference to your tests is that I have a serial sensor connected to the F_TX and F_RX ports as well as powered via the F_3V3 pin.

Thanks,
Serge

19

I have the same problem with the Notecarrier F and the Adafruit Feather RP2040. That is, I can not get the feather to recognize the notecarrier. When I configure i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA) and do i2c.try_lock() and i2c.scan, the result is empty, an empty list.
This is no matter if I power it by the notecarrier or the feather, whether or not ATTN is on or not.
Any thoughts?

20

Same issue here with Notecarrier F and Swan 3.0 - “notecard not responding”

Tried powering Notecarrier separately from Swan - no difference. Was this issue ever resolved for @ssozonoff ?