Wierd Battery, SD and CM4 8GB Upgrade Issues - All Solved

uConsole
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Thought I would share my issues incase anyone else has the same problems.

Problem 1: The device would only power on with USB. The battery showed 0% charge and showed no signs of charging. As soon as USB is disconnected the device would die. Another symptom is that the power/charging LED behind the power button does not light up (I didn’t even know they existed until this was solved).

Solution: The battery board was not connected properly to the motherboard. The connectors are wierd and sit at a 90 degree angle, so what I initially did is sit the battery board flat and push the connectors in sideways. Instead you should push the connectors in at a 45 degree angle and then twist the battery board down so it’s flat.

Problems 2 and 3: I swapped out the CM4 4GB for an 8GB model and also replaced the 32 GB SD card with a 256 GB one. (tip: only upgrade one part at a time!). After doing this the device wouldn’t boot. I could see the screen getting power but nothing appeared on it. I put the original 32 GB SD card back in. Still nothing. I swapped the CM4 back the 4GB and it worked. I put the bigger SD card back in and it didn’t boot again. This was an odd situation where it seemed like the uConsole would only boot with a 4GB CM4 and a 32GB SD card.

Solution: The 8GB CM4 and the larger SD card were actually fine. The issue was how I was inserting the SD card. My SD cards catch the case slightly and it can seem like the SD card is in when in fact it is not fully inserted. I reseated the motherboard to help with this. Basically when pushing the SD card in, it must “click” for it to work. It’s not enough that it appears to be in there.

Hope this helps.

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These are great observations and great tips. Thanks for sharing them!

Making sure everything is seated and connected properly is a good first thing to check if you are having weird behavior with uConsole or DevTerm. And just generally good advice for any electronics or kits.

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I can absolutely second what you said about carefully inserting the battery board at an angle. I didn’t connect it properly on first try and only one battery cell was charging, so my uconsole always switched off at 50% power. :woman_facepalming:

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My uconsole has been constantly shutting down around 50%. I’ve tried to recalibrate it many times, I’ll give this a try next

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do you have CM5 or CM4? CM5 have some weird issues on “low battery level”

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Did you check to make sure your battery board is connected properly the fingers inserted all the way flush?

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Yeah, I just reseated it to make sure. I’m waiting for a full charge to test it out.

Update:

Same issue but I managed to get the stats before it shut off.

innuendoz@clockworkpi:~ $ cat /sys/class/power_supply/axp20x-battery/uevent
DEVTYPE=power_supply
OF_NAME=battery-power-supply
OF_FULLNAME=/soc/i2c@7e205000/pmic@34/battery-power-supply
OF_COMPATIBLE_0=x-powers,axp221-battery-power-supply
OF_COMPATIBLE_N=1
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=axp20x-battery
POWER_SUPPLY_TYPE=Battery
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=1
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=3456000
POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=-932000
POWER_SUPPLY_CONSTANT_CHARGE_CURRENT=2400000
POWER_SUPPLY_CONSTANT_CHARGE_CURRENT_MAX=2400000
POWER_SUPPLY_HEALTH=Good
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MAX=4200000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN=3300000
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=44
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_FULL=24790000
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_NOW=10907600
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_FULL_DESIGN=24790000
POWER_SUPPLY_CALIBRATE=48
POWER_SUPPLY_POWER_NOW=0
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6700000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=3300000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MAX_DESIGN=4200000
innuendoz@clockworkpi:~ $

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I have the Cm4 version

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Well this time it made it to around 38% before shutting off. Not sure if it’s an issue with the battery or if it’s just the icon out of sync.

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