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Troubleshooting Tips

Need Help?

If you need technical assistance or more information on a product that is not working as you expected, we recommend heading over to the SparkFun Technical Assistance page for some initial troubleshooting.

SparkFun Technical Assistance Page

If you can't find what you need there, the SparkFun GNSS Forum is a great place to ask questions.

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If this is your first visit to our forum, you'll need to create a Forum Account to post questions.

Upload Issues

If users have issues during the uploading process, they can try to manually force the board into DFU mode with the reset button. Double-tapping the RST button will force the MCU to into the Device Firmware Update mode. The board will remain in this mode, until it power cycles (which happens automatically, after uploading new firmware) or the reset button is pressed.

  1. Double-tap the RST button
    • The STAT LED should be fading in/out very slowly
  2. Users should now, be able to upload a new program
    • It shouldn't be necessary to select a COM port in the Arduino IDE; only the board needs to be selected
  3. Once programming is complete, the MCU should reboot on its own. Otherwise:
    • Press the RST button
    • Power cycle the board

Reset Button

RST button on the RA6M5 Thing Plus.

Digital I/O

Utilizing Interrupts

When utilizing an interrupt on a digital GPIO, the attached interrupt service routine should be able to execute within the shortest, possible time frame. Otherwise, the suspended task could trigger various faults or errors.

µSD Card

Compatibility

The FATFileSystem library built into the Renesas-Arduino core, supports µSD cards with a FAT32 file system (i.e. SD cards up to 32GB in size).

  • While users may be able to use cards with a higher storage capacity, we highly advise against it. As users may experience data loss due to a corrupt file system (i.e. SD cards with a storage capacity greater than 32GB are not meant to be formatted with a FAT32 file system).

Hot Swapping

To avoid corrupting an SD card, users should disable all activity with the SD card and disconnect power before removing it from the RA6M5 Thing Plus.