Nothing looks out of place from what I can see (other than those super sketchy 18650s*). Your Pi is in the right orientation, battery board connectors look good, and you already tried 100% of the most common troubleshooting steps.
Best thing I can recommend is to check your voltages on the Pi with a multimeter if you can to see if it is getting any power when you try to power it on. Otherwise try flashing the OS to your known working flash card again using a different tool (Balena Etcher, Rufus, RaspberryPi Media Writer, DD, etc).
For my comment above about your batteries, the GTF (or more rarely GTP) branded 9900MAh batteries like yours I have tested usually only hold about 850-1200MAh. Trying your uConsole with another set of 18650s might not be a bad idea in case these ones cant handle the draw, but these sketchy cells do usually work so i kinda doubt this is your issue.
If nothing else works, email ClockWork. Their customer service is pretty great. They quickly sent me a replacement mobo for my GameShell when it was DOA with very few questions asked.
Adding an image of my uConsole just in case someone else notices something different.
I spotted that 9,900 mAh also, I agree that most likely that is the problem. I had some that claimed 6,000 and were light as a feather. Putting them in a proper tester, they got about 650 mAh.
I don’t understand the certainty that the batteries are the problem? As I said above, I’ve tried powering without the batteries using high quality USB-C cables and adapters.
holding down the power button for a few seconds and a green LED should light up. regardless if you have HDMI connectors, batteries, or microSD card. That should save you from trying things that won’t work.
I suspect you tried everything and it’s time for you to reach out to support in order to get a replacement.
We aren’t saying that the batteries are causing this issue (though i suppose it cant be ruled out conclusively without direct replacements to test against), we just mentioned that the batteries you have are known to be of very low capacity and quality. We only mentioned this so you are aware that these batteries may cause other issues in the future and not perform as you may have expected.
Think of it like this: you are in a parking lot and your car wont start. We are just letting you know that you also have a nail in your tire.
I was referring to aother post, apologies! Your post was detailed and appreciated.
The batteries are definitely garbage and will be upgraded, but I have a fairly high level of confidence that they’re not the issue given the complete and utter lack of any signs of life whatsoever, even when powered by USB-C and no batteries in place.
remove everything (including RPi & adapter board), keeping only the base board and battery board. maybe disconnect the LCD too. remove the batteries for a minute to reset everything. connect usb-c power if you wish. a long press of the power button should power on the board & green led. if no power, it could be one or more of the following:
button and/or supporting components is bad/damaged
AXP power management chip and/or supporting components is bad/damaged
there is a short on the board
also, try it again without batteries, just in case…
This was incredibly helpful, thanks! I didn’t even realize their was a power LED…
I disassembled everything as you suggested, pulled the batteries for a bit, and reseated. With a two-second hold of the power button, I received a green power LED.
I then removed the batteries and added the CM4 with adapter board. Added batteries, powered up, green LED! I waited a few minutes and I was presented with the desktop and was able to complete the setup. Score!
I powered down, removed the batteries, added in the LTE board, and tried powering up again. The LED just flickers briefly. If I remove the LTE board, it boots right up now.
So, I think it’s safe to say I have a bad LTE board. It looks like there have been a couple others in this forum with the same issue.
At least now I can narrow it down to a specific component and get a replacement. And I can get some use out of it while I wait.
I just bought my uConsole. I put it together and charged the batteries by connecting it to usb-c power. When I tried turning it on, the display ‘flickered’ for maybe a couple of milliseconds and then shut down. The led on the power button is green. I tried turning it off by depressing the power button again and nothing happened. I opened up the case and checked the state of the batteries. One was fully charged (4 volts) and the other was about 3.1 volts. The charged battery was located in the battery slot furthest away from the mainboard. I removed the batteries and did a continuity check between the battery slots while still connected to the mainboard. The 5 volt side between the two battery slots showed continuity while the ground side did not. I removed the battery module and that removed continuity between the two battery slots on the 5 volt side.
The connection between mainboard and the battery module is through the two connectors labeled ‘POWER’. Each connector has four pins, one for each of the battery slots. From the + side of the battery module the first two pins support power and the second two pins support ground for each connector. I measured continuity on the mainboard side of the connectors and there is continuity on the power and ground sides of each connector.
This indicates to me that the pins from the battery module connector were not seating correctly on the mainboard connectors. I loosened the retaining screws on the mainboard and pushed on the power connection side of the board to ensure the mainboard properly aligned. That fixed the problem where the grounds on the battery module were floating with respect to each other.
I replaced the batteries and reconnected the usb-c charging port. Unfortunately I got the same result where the screen ‘flickered’ for a couple of milliseconds and then shut down. The green led is still illuminated. I’m out of ideas. Any help is appreciated.
Greg - False alarm. The SD card was not fully inserted. I was able to get it to boot. I was about ready to throw in the towel when I fixed the board alignment problem and it still didn’t work. Thanks for your response.
Best,
Willie
