I have received and built my uConsole! I opted to jump straight to a CM5 with the CM5116000 and some passive cooling. It is awesome, and I can’t wait to spend more time using it…
Unfortunately, my screen backlight doesn’t work at all. HDMI out works perfectly and has been my primary way to interact with the system (Which kind of defeats the purpose). I’m sure that the issue is related to the backlight because the desktop can be seen on the uConsole display when a flashlight is aimed at just the right angle.
I’ve scoured this forum and followed troubleshooting steps which were suggested for others who were experiencing display issues, but none of them have solved my issue. If the post contains the words “screen”, “backlight”, or “display”, I have probably read it. Some of the things I’ve tried include:
Re-flashing Rex’ bookworm image and others (multiple times, multiple SD’s, multiple methods including official raspberry pi flasher, dd, etcher, GNOME disk tool, others)
Removing and re-seating all hardware components
Swap power supply & batteries
Test both with and without 4g/speaker board or hackergadgets AIO installed.
I even reached out to Alex@clockworkpi.com because I believed that my display was defective. Alex was amazing and promptly shipped a replacement, but I’m disappointed to say that the new display has the same issue.
Since the display itself doesn’t seem to be the problem, I have ordered a new mainboard, but I don’t know how long the wait could be.
I am posting here with the hope that someone may have a suggestion that could solve my display backlight issue sooner than later.
If anyone is willing to help, I’d greatly appreciate it. I am happy to take a look at any links or suggestions.
If you can see the faint image of the desktop on the display but no backlight. Then everything should be hooked up correctly and I suspect it’s a problem with the screen. I’d email Alex at the email above and request a new screen.
Did you use my package or the setup instructions from hackergadgets to set up your SDR card? There are a few issues with the online instructions for the cm5 that will cause the backlight to not work.
If you used the instructions on the web to set it up, try flashing a new SD card and see if you get backlight.
If that’s not the issue the schematics for the main board are on the clockwork GitHub, you can get the relevant power pin from that.
Besides that since you already have a new screen I’d replace the main board next.
Actually, just yesterday afternoon I used your package to install everything for the AIO board. The only change I needed to make to config.txt was to add dtparam=uart0.
On that note, thanks for all of your contributions to this community! Your positive attitude, patience, and descriptive responses to questions asked by others on this forum have helped me gain a better understanding of this device.
I’ve tried flashing fresh images to multiple different SD cards. All have been able to boot, with HDMI allowing me to validate that everything else works as expected.
Thanks for the tip about the mainboard, I’ll check it out!
Hello, I have the same issue, got my uConsole 5 months ago. Same symptoms. Unfortunately, I can’t wrap my head around schematics, so I don’t even know where to start debug the problem.
If you find a solution, please write it in this topic.
I found a loose component in my parts box, and there’s an empty spot on the mainboard where it looks like it belongs (D301). The spot is on the back of the board. Check out your mainboard
Try to find it in the place where you unpacked and assembled the device (also check the gaps inside the box), personally I found this component completely by accident. It is very small, 1x1x2mm.
If you do not find it, then perhaps you should contact support and ask them to send mainboard or this component (or at least give the full name of the component).
