Corne half no longer working?
I charged the my primary Corne half last night for the first time in several months. Today, it does not appear to turn on — if I either turn on the power switch or plug in power, the nice!view shows noise (i.e. a sparse random pattern of black dots), but it never resolves into the normal screen function (the fact this happens with no power cord says to me that it is properly getting power from the battery). I also do not appear to be able to enter it into the bootloader via double-tapping the reset button (have not tried the jumper option), which makes me suspect it may be a deeper issue with the nice!nano rather than just a non-functioning display.
Any tips for how to diagnose this further?
24 Replies
It sounds like you're having trouble with your Corne's primary half. Let's try a few things:
1. Check the battery: Ensure it's properly connected and the power switch is on. The battery needs to be on to charge.
2. Try a different USB cable/port: Sometimes a faulty cable or port can cause issues.
3. Enter bootloader: If double-tapping the reset button doesn't work, try shorting the RST and GND pins on the nice!nano with metal tweezers. See Entering the Bootloader for more info.
4. Check the nice!nano: If you can't enter the bootloader, the nice!nano may be the issue. See this guide from Nice Keyboards.
If none of these steps work, please reply to this message or tag me for further assistance.
Entering the Bootloader | Typeractive.xyz Documentation
Learn how to enter the bootloader on your nice!nano.
Troubleshooting - nice!nano
Troubleshooting tips for the nice!nano
For humans checking in: confirming it's not #1 or #2. Will try a ground-reset in a little bit when I have the energy to disassemble. Starting to follow the steps to reflash the bootloader (I'm a bit skeptical since the issues aren't just entering the bootloader), but might take a bit of futzing, my local python env is messed up
From leaving it plugged into my computer for a few minutes, the MCU side of the unit (e.g. touching the screen or the rear case) is noticeably warm to the touch
Urgh. Not only is manual bootloader entry not working, but in trying to get that going one of the legs got ripped off my EZ-solder headers. Curious what you would recommend at this point, since while I'm sure I could kludge together a working extra pin I don't want to spend that time if there's little likelihood of getting things working after that.
(I also misread the troubleshooting page earlier re: the bootloader, I do not have a device programmer handy)
Uhhh, I left it plugged in for a bit, and it got hot enough to warp the case. I can’t imagine this is safe to use. Curious (a) if there’s any warranty coverage for this, and (b) if you have recs for how to confirm if my battery/screen/PCB are screwed.
Imagine you won't see this til tomorrow, but pinging @Nicell anyway since this is has seemingly escalated from "what's wrong?" to "this seems actively dangerous".
(I've fully disassembled it for now, just so the battery isn't connected to anything)
what is getting warm? the nano or the battery?
if it’s the battery I suggest you dispose of it ASAP!
I’m not sure. The physical damage to the plastic seemed to be mostly along the top, which would make me guess it’s the nano rather than the battery, but unsure
Ok, I may ask you to ship the board (disassembled) back to us so we can take a look.
The first time I noticed it the screen was warm to the touch, which also doesn’t say much other than “I didn’t notice for a while”
Maybe plug in the nano and see if it warms up. Take care while doing this but let’s make sure it was the nano
Lithium batteries can be scary, I think in this case it’s all good though (inspect it for any bulging)
sorry for the troubles here 🙏
Sure, will pop the nano and battery back on the board (just gonna remove all switches first) and try to see if it’s easy to tell which it is. No visible bulging.
just plug the nano in via usb alone! I’d keep the battery out of the equation for now 🙂
Ohhh gotcha, that makes way more sense 😅
yes, within 5-10s of plugging the nano in, it's too hot to comfortably touch
ok, got it. sounds like there’s an internal short somewhere likely
my guess is an ESD shock when plugging in the nano
probably the only course of action is a replacement nano and a new case. We’re working on making the nano more resilient to ESD, these winter dry months have been challenging
If you’d like we can still set up a return label and look at it ourselves, but I’m guessing it’ll be the same conclusion
no worries, unless you’d find value in looking at it (and it sounds like no) I can’t imagine that would result in a different outcome for me
Ok sounds good. Could you DM me an order number? Then I can send out a replacement case + nano for you.
@Nicell Hmm, so I got the new nice!nano socketed, and plugged it into the existing PCB with the nice!view but no battery. When I connect it to USB (with out-of-the-box firmware), my computer recognizes I've plugged it in, but I can't type, and the display also continues to show just noise
I’d be happy to take apart my other working half to confirm the new nice!nano works with the known-good PCB (i.e. confirm it’s a PCB issue) and swap the displays to try to figure out if the display is broken or if it’s just a side effect of the PCB, but I’m not sure if there’s any risk of causing further damage?
Wanted to gently nudge this!
yeah coukd you confirm the nano is good on the other half?
sounds like it’s the PCB with damage 😦
swapping the view to the other half is a good idea too
sorry about the delay
Okay, the new nano wasn't working in the new PCB, so I re-flashed with my firmware and it worked fine in both PCBs.
The entire 'burnt' half is now working wired — it's not working purely over battery, but I suspect that's because all these insertions/reinsertions seem to have caused me to break a single ez-solder header pin on each of my nice!nanos, and I'm guessing that's the cause. (When I socketed the other nano onto the board, it seemed to charge power from the battery fine, but it also missing a pin is definitely giving me pause).
I spent some time trying to bodge a spare pin onto each, but I'm (reasonably) having trouble with that (I'm unable to heat up and pull out the half-broken pin remnants like I would with 'normal' headers, I'm guessing because it looks like the ez-solder pins have extra metal reinforcing them?). Curious if you have any advice for how to best salvage, I recognize this is user error.
which pin are you missing?
some are unused
One’s missing the GND second from the USB port edge (left side if you’re looking from the side with the n!n logo silkscreen), the other is missing 106 on the opposite edge
@Nicell Noticing this fell off the thread sidebar for me, so half bumping this for my own sake and half a gentle ping in case it did for you too
missing a single ground should be fine, 1.06 isn't used luckily
so... seems like maybe the PCB is broken then if you're not getting battery power in?
it seems like battery power was working with one n!n (the existing one from the other half) but not the other (the new one). I’ll double-check that, now that I know neither of those pins should be a problem
Yeah, my memory was correct, the PCB is fine, but the new n!n seems to be unable to connect to battery power — my left half (the side that had been burnt) is now fully functioning using the right-side PCB, and the new n!n is also unable to get battery power from the right half (which had no issues). I tried reflowing all the pins on the EZ-solder headers just to make sure I didn't have a bad joint, no difference.
ugh… what are the chances
well.. another new nano?
should’ve just received an email
about another order
sorry again for the troubles, this is annoying!
I appreciate it! Fingers crossed this one finally puts it all to rest 😅
Good news! Seems to finally be all put together and working properly. Still haven’t fully put it through its paces, but I seem to mostly be able to connect both halves wirelessly and type. Thank you for all your help!
One hopefully easy last question: in the time this has sat out on my workspace, I seem to have misplaced one of the five metal standoffs on one of the halves. I assume that’s a standard M2 standoff I can buy and drop in, but knowing what exactly to look for would be helpful.