Alchitry Au V2 Sudden Power Failure

Development Boards FPGA Boards
1

Hey all — I’m having a weird issue with an Alchitry Au V2 and wanted to see if anyone has run into something similar or can provide assistance.

I received the board two days ago. Initially plugging it into USB it had a default LED sweep animation. I was able to program it once over Alchitry labs to do my own simple LED-walk “Hello World” binary that worked just fine. Between that and my next programming attempt the board lost power and was unable to communicate to the computer. No soldering or hardware modifications were done, and it was only ever plugged into a computer USB-C port.

It was working normally, then suddenly stopped powering from its own USB-C port. I tried multiple cables and USB ports and now get no LEDs at all. I also have the Alchitry FT+V2 usb-extender board, and when powering through that I am able to partially power the AuV2 but it is not functional.

A few measurements/details:

  • About 40 mV across the Au V2 + / - power points when powered from its own USB

  • About 360 ohms between + and - with the board unplugged

  • If I connect an FT+ V2 and power through that, I get about 4.7 V on the Au’s + / - points

  • In that state the Au lights a few LEDs in a weird pattern and gets noticeably hot

  • With both USB connections present, Alchitry Loader still detects the Au V2 and lets me program it, but a simple LED walking bitstream that was previously working just flashes all the LEDs once and stops

I’ve already opened a support request with SparkFun and emailed Alchitry, but I’m curious whether anyone here has seen a similar Au V2 power/regulator failure or if sparkfun personel here can help me initiate an RMA for this.

Thanks!

Daniel

2

Are there perhaps any solder bridges near the usb port on the board (might also be by the mosfet) that might be causing issues?

Maybe share a close-ish photo that shows the factory soldering

3

I’m not seeing any soldering that looks problematic. I have attached wide and close shots of the back and front of the board if that’s helpful.

IMG_7629
IMG_76291920×2560 952 KB

IMG_7630
IMG_76301920×1440 564 KB

IMG_7631
IMG_76311920×2560 884 KB

IMG_7628
IMG_76281920×1440 550 KB

4

Thanks for those - the only thing that looks a bit weird to me is the right side of this’n, but I suspect those are just reflections rather than solder bridges :-/

image
image761×586 70.4 KB

Sometimes the inductors can get cracked/damaged in shipping but I don’t see any signs of that either (those are the large round fellas)

Was it purchased from us? If so head over to Return Policy - SparkFun Electronics (contact vendor if purchased elsewhere) and we’ll get ya squared away