Sparkfun IoT Brushless Motor Driver - not working - no usb device

Other Miscellaneous
1

I just got two SparkFun IoT Brushless Motor Driver kits, and neither will connect to my Windows 11 PC.

Regardless of if I have the correct drivers installed, when I plug in the USB, I expect Windows to make that “Bah-dah” sound to indicate it detected new hardware. It does not make that sound.

The “PWR” and the “MPWR” lights both turn on. The “STDY” light turns on. After a few minutes I feel the motor start to heat up. There’s definitely power going to the board. The fact that it heats up is interesting considering that means the motor is getting current when I haven’t programmed anything yet. It also is “locked” into position when power is applied.

There is nothing new under Device Manager/Other Devices. There is nothing new under Device Manager/Ports.

I do have a CP210 ESP32 device that I am able to connect using the same USB port and same USB cable. I can also use the same USB port and cable with my phone and am able to browse its file system. And, of course, in both cases windows says “Bah-dah” indicating something new was connected.

I found nothing in the Event Viewer.

I’d say I’m 100% it’s defective hardware except that I got two and they both have the problem.

2

That board use CH340 drivers; try running through the steps here https://docs.sparkfun.com/SparkFun_IoT_ … _overview/ and see how that goes

3

I did that, and I do have the correct drivers installed. But that doesn’t matter.

The problem is the drivers don’t get used because Windows never detects a new device being added/plugged in.

When I plug in the board to USB, should make that “new device” sound, and something should show up in Device Manager, regardless of if you have a correct driver installed or not. If you have the incorrect driver, then maybe it shows up under “unknown devices”, or maybe it shows up in the correct place but with the wrong name or with an exclamation point because the driver won’t load.

This doesn’t show up anywhere.