I am trying to connect my RTK Facet via USB. I installed the CH340 driver and have had the system working as advertised both with TerraTerm and UConnect only twice. Once for around a minute a once for a few seconds.
With nothing connected to the device, I am able to turn on the device and see that there is two bars of battery
When I open device manager on my laptop and plug the device in, I get the tone that a USB has been plugged in and I am able to see the CH340 device for roughly two seconds before I get the tone that a usb has been unplugged and the CH340 disappears
Note: Once out of every 20 or so attempts I see the CH340 and the Serial Device both in the device manager as I am supposed to. Most of the time I only see the CH340
Note: When I plug the RTK Facet into the laptop, the display does not illuminate as it is supposed to according to the startup video. If I plug it in with the display on, the display goes out
Note: I keep the device plugged in and try various methods of pressing the power button to try to get it to stay connected. For no rhyme or reason, I was able to connect to both the CH340 and the Serial Device for less than one minute two times. During that time, I was able to use Uconnect and TerraTerm. Both times when I opened TerraTerm I was able to see the correct information displayed for a few seconds then the Facet disconnected itself.
I have tried three Facets but I do not have a different laptop to try. Does anyone happen to have any ideas as to where I can go from here? Thank you!
Sounds like a hardware issue with the laptop. What make/model/year is it? The Facet has a USB hub built in to allow two devices (the ZED and the ESP32) to participate on USB. It is a common USB hub IC that should work with most anything. You may want to try a different port on your laptop or computer.
This may not be applicable as it sounds like you have tried a bunch of different combinations, but I have found that with some of my laptops the Facet likes to turn itself off. I can’t figure out necessarily why it is doing it, but I have sat there trying to troubleshoot why I can’t connect that sounds very similar to what you are saying only to realize that it had turned off when I was unplugging and plugging the device back it.
Also somewhat unintuitively to me, the power button is a long press, so if I just tap it, it turns on momentarily, I hear the computer make the connection and disconnection sound, but the device remains off. In this case the sparkfun logo momentarily displays, and then goes off which made me think it was turning on.
So my suggestion would be to try plugging it in and then long pressing the power button, ensure that the Facet display stays lit and that it shows the satellite display, position indicator and battery meter.
I never get a display on the Facet when it is plugged into the laptop no matter what port I use, or which press method I use. When it is disconnected from the laptop the display functions properly, but it goes away the moment it is plugged in to the laptop.
I would have a better understanding if the laptop never saw the Facet in device manager, but I get the CH340 to appear for about two seconds every single time I press the power button. Rarely I get the CH340 and the Serial Device to both connect for about two seconds. Very rarely do I get the CH340 and the Serial Device to stay connected long enough to use UConnect or TerraTerm. This instance only happened the two times, neither time for more than a minute and hasn’t happened since making my post.
The laptop is a 2016 Dell Precision 7510.
All three of our Facets behave the exact same way.
Without hardware to replicate the issue it’s hard for me to really recommend anything other than trying a different computer. If you want to ship the Facets back for inspection, we are happy to have a look at the three units and make sure they are in working order.