Diagnosing unknown LoRa-E5-HF module issue

Hello

As the title suggests, I am trying to diagnose an unknown issue with the LoRa-E5-HF module. I do not expect an exact solution because I understand this might be a very specific situation, but what I am looking for is some direction.

We are using PuTTy and an STLink probe to output logs over the serial connection. With the current firmware we are running on it, we do see that the module is starting up, but we don’t get much else useful output to work with.
What I am trying to figure out is if there is firmware that could be flashed onto this that would help in the diagnosing process that may potentially output some more useful information. Perhaps some way of indicating if the board is underpowered or burned out or really anything useful.

We have this module built into a board that we are using for one of our devices, and we are using STM32CubeProgrammer to flash it with some custom firmware. We don’t think its the firmware, because we have a previous version of the board using the same module and firmware and it worked just fine (dozens of these working boards). It is just on the newest version that it does not work. Out of ten prototypes, only three worked successfully. So it seems to point to a hardware problem.

I know it’s a pretty specific case with the custom firmware and all, that’s why I’m trying to see if there is something out there I can flash that is more known, or verbose, or perhaps with some documentation.

I am fairly new to hardware debugging on this level, so I would be grateful for any advice on the matter.

Thank you

Hi
I am experiencing the same issue. Did you ever find a solution?
Thanks

You need to connect to it while it’s in bootloader to update FW. One way is to power up while holding RESET pin low, connect, then release RESET pin to modify FW.

Hey @gigamonte,

We did not really find a solution to this issue. We think it is related to the manufacturing process, whether it was a bad batch or it was from the board assembler. We did some troubleshooting by modifying our firmware to add print statements to the console for each phase of the initialization process. We found that the startup on these bad chips always hung on the “subGHz_phy” module (and always for about 23 seconds), which as far as we can tell, seems to indicate that there is something physically wrong within the chip. Out of a few hundred, we had something like a 30% failure rate. Pretty rough.

We had our assembler send us back our LoRa chips, and we flashed them before they were assembled. And they all flashed. This seemed to point to the assembler. We let them know, and they must have changed something in their assembly process, or we have moved past the batch that was bad, because now they are pretty reliably working in our latest batches that we did not pre-flash.

It is still a mystery to us, but if your problem is the same one we were having, it seems to have something to do with that “subGHz_phy” module, which from what I understand, is one of the main bridges between the firmware and the hardware.

I hope this helps point you in the right direction.

I’m sorry to tell you.
We have a reminder in the Wiki about brushing your own firmware: If you choose to brush your own firmware, you will no longer be able to brush the factory firmware.

Respected sir,
i wrongly erasing factory firmware , but now i can’t communicate with AT command how to recover the AT command Firmware again into my lorae5 module , any binary file is there for flashing firmware to recover the AT commands

Sorry, if the firmware was deleted incorrectly, you will not be able to revert to the AT firmware. We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Hello Seraphina,
am using lora-e5 (stm32wle5 modules) . how to communicate p2p using two lora-e5 modules without using AT commands. What are all the configuration or config files we need to generate code in stm32cubeide.
thanks,

Hi SYAMALA,

If you prefer ArduinoIDE, which is easier to write than stm32cubeide, the following link may be helpful.
Programming LoRa-E5 with Arduino, LoRa-E5 mini Point to Point Comminucation over 24 km - #8 by msfujino

hello msfujino,

We are using Custom lora-e5(stm32wle5 series) Board, We have ST link flashing tool in our custom board, how to flash the example arduino  code in our custom board.

Thanks,

hello @msfujino,

We are using Custom lora-e5(stm32wle5 series) Board, We have ST link flashing tool in our custom board, how to flash the example arduino code in our custom board.
thanks,

With “STM32CubeProgrammer”, you can flush.

**** For reference ****
When compiled with ArduinoIDE2, the hex file is created in the folder below. Select and write the file with STA32CubeProgrammer.
In case of Windows
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino\sketches\32 digit HEX string\sketchname.ino.hex
In case of Linux
/tmp/arduino/sketches/32 digit HEX string/sketchname.ino.hex

1 Like

hello @msfujino ,

When i compiled The example code with Arduino IDE2, i got a error message like this,


i will be replace the error code to getStatus(); i compile the example code again it will shows error code like

how to recover the issues.
thanks,

Have you selected a board as shown below?

// Borad select : STM32 based boards / LoRa boars
// Board part number : LoRa-E5 mini (Board to be selected from Tools submenu ‘Board part number’)

i have select the Board and part number refer below image,


that time also getting error code like this. i can’t edit radio files because it is in protected file.
how to recover from this error.
thanks,

hello @msfujino ,

i have select the Board and part number refer below image,


that time also getting error code like this. i can’t edit radio files because it is in protected file.
how to recover from this error.
thanks,

The boards I am using are Wio-E5 mini and Grove-LoRa-E5.
I believe they both have the STM32WLE5JC.

Please try to compile the board with the following selections.

Borad select : STM32 based boards / LoRa boars
Board part number : LoRa-E5 mini

Note that once you upload something, you cannot use the AT command.

hello @msfujino

i have selected the above mentioned same configuration,


The same error will be shows. Is it possible to support via online(any disk).

Also check BSP and library versions. Use ArduinoI DE’s Board Manager and Library Manager to check.

Board Support Package : STM32 MCU based boards by STMicroelectronics 2.7.1 or 2.8.1
library : RadioLib by Jan Gromes 6.6.0

  1. What is the exact model number or link to the module you are using?
  2. Please post all lines of the error message as a text file </> or attach a ZIP file.
  3. What sketch are you compiling?
  4. Do you have SX126x in the following locations on your PC?
    /Documents/arduino/libraries/radiolib/src/module/SX126x

I compiled with RadioLib 7.0.0 and got the same error as yours. 6.6.0 does not have the error.
Please check the version of RadioLib.