3. Flaky M5STACK-4M-PSRAM

Flaky M5STACK-4M-PSRAM

  • P

    I received my new M5STACK-4M-PSRAM from Aliexpress last week and it seemed to work fine out of the box. However, the bottom with the battery seems to be causing issues. With no USB plugged in, the Meters sample app will run for a few seconds stall and the device will shut down or reboot and do this cycle a couple of times. If I plug the USB cable connected to a powered hub (I tried a few different ones), the device won't even power up and when it does, it will cycle as mentioned before.

    If I remove the bottom and power via USB then the device will power up and run as expected and keep running for a while and then shut down. I have to unplug and replug the USB to get it to start again. I took the bottom apart and all connections to be battery seem ok. So something is not working.

    What do you propose I do next?

    0 1 Reply

  • @pkourany
    Hi, ESP32 devices in general can be a bit sensitive when it comes to power.

    So evidently the battery is charging - a bit - but not enough to keep the thing running for a while.

    From what I've found this is likely due to the M5Stack not receiving enough power to charge properly. 5V is required. A powered USB hub with certain devices connected can be putting out less than that. A USB meter is useful for testing. Use a short USB cable. Try a different cable.

    I had the same experience but since using a powered and dedicated USB hub I haven't had power cycling as you described.

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  • P

    I changed to using a 2A high quality (Samsung) power cube. I tested with original cable and brand new cable. I tested both for current capacity using my QooPow cable tester and both proved good to over 2A. I added an inline USB power monitor device and plugged the new cable to the M5Stack. Worked fine for less than a minute with current around 80ma. After that, the M5Stack screen went dark and current went down to about 28ma. The unit then went into a reset cycle a few times then stopped with the same 28ma current. I had the same results for both cables.

    After the final shutdown, hitting the reset button did nothing and the unit would not power on. Only after unplugging the USB from the M5Stack and replugging it in did it boot up again repeating the cycle above.

    When I removed the bottom piece and plugged in the USB, the M5Stack booted right away and ran at 80ma indefinitely.

    So, I believe something IS wrong with the battery or the charger. I will be testing some more by keeping the bottom off and plugging in a 3.7v LiPo directly into the main board of the M5Stack.

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  • F

    My new M5STACK-4M-PSRAM has the same problem. It also fails most of the uploads, although I have tried all the possible solutions proposed this website.

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  • Regarding power, is the M5stack power hungry? Can the LCD be turned off entirely, with the ILI controller?

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  • Has this been fixed?

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  • @daslolo Hi Daslolo,

    There is some discussion of power use here: http://forum.m5stack.com/topic/44/review-battery/11

    There might also be another thread elsewhere on this....

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  • @jimit thanks for the link.

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