What color are your LEDs?

[ian]

It seems like there a variety of LED colors when into different Bus Pirates. What colors are yours? I have an engineering prototype with all green LEDs (green and black=Hack a Day, get it?). I used red and yellow in the one I assembled myself. I noticed red and some other colors in various unboxing photos.

[broeggle]

Hey - it's me - bro from hackaday

I have
PWR - red
MODE - green
VREG - missing?!? (there is a led on the other unpacking pictures)

and the rx/tx is green too.

[broeggle]

see this picture:

[ian]

Yes, your VREG LED is missing. IF you have any 0805 LEDs they're easy to solder on, or you could contact SEEED with your pictures.

[ian]

Adding... it is just an indicator LED, it won't change the function of the circuit.

[broeggle]

:)
Fortunately I found one in my spare parts drawer --- RedGreenRed :)

[ian]

I'm glad you could fix it. In response to your earlier problems I've added a self-test to the Bus Pirate firmware. I'll be releasing the next version shortly.

[Scorpia]

pwr=red,mode=green,vreg=red,usb=green

[geekmaster]

I received my two BPv3 units yesterday. I wanted probe kits too, but they were out-of-stock ;-(. Both BPv3 units were in a small box with no documentation or receipts. Only the boards stuck into conductive foam blocks were in the box. Luckily, I have Google. Google found BPv3 units on ebay, large quantity new with USB cables for a "Buy Now" price of $30 including shipping. Mine, as ordered from Seeed Studio, did not come with USB cables, which in my case was not a problem.

The Perl test scripts did not work with my units on COM11 and COM12, so I removed old USB COM ports and made the BPv3 boards COM3 and COM4, and then the scripts worked fine. I removed the extra COM ports by setting the environment variable "devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1", then using Device Manager and selecting "Show hidden devices".

Both units pass all tests including the binary mode tests. I also used the Sump Client windows binary to test logic analyzer mode. Touching your finger to the MOSI, MISO, etc. pins records nice 60 hz waveforms (stray AC power-line coupling to the body). The different lines appear to switch at zero-crossings at slightly different times. I needed to set my USB COM port timeouts to 4000 in device manager as mentioned elsewhere at this site, to get the Sump Client to work with the BPv3. I used this pre-compiled Win32 Sump Client, which needed no add-ons or tweaking:
http://www.gadgetfactory.net/gf/download/frsrelease/101/100/BFP_Logic_Analyzer_0.8.1.zip

My LEDs are Red-Yellow-Green-Red on one unit, and Red-Yellow-(DEAD)-Red on the other unit.

I have one dead Mode LED. Could it have been soldered in backwards? Is there a way to tell by visual inspection?

I noticed another report in the forum of a dead Mode LED as well. Perhaps it has the same problem...

[geekmaster]

Multiple forum topics mention "broken" Mode LEDs.

I fixed mine. The LED was NOT bad -- it was just soldered in backwards. I unsoldered it and reversed it, and now it works.

When probing the LEDs with the "diode test" function of my multi-meter, the LEDs now light up for all LEDs except USB, where I have to REVERSE the probes to make it light upI

It looks like the board layout requires that the USB LED be installed in a reverse orientation compared to the others, and on some units like mine the Mode LED is ALSO installed in reverse orientation, which makes it fail.

Ian, you need to either have Seeed Studio be especially vigilant about WHICH of the LED needs to be installed in reverse orientation. In the future, it would be an easier build if all LEDs were installed with the same physical orientation, to avoid this problem.

Because of the layout causing assembly errors, I suspect there are also units where the USB LED does not light up...

[swissMac]

Yes LEDs are "duff" i.e. not of good quality
the USB green LED is nolonger bright (after 10 mins of burn time)
and the mode LED is dead on both boards

[ian]

@swissMac - I think your MODE LEDs may be backwards, that's the second report of dead MODE LEDs this week. It doesn't seem to be widespread (yet), bit I'm sure there was a problem somewhere along the line. V2go was fine, the first part of v3 preorder 1 was fine, but some boards delivered in the last week had an error. You can return it to Seeed for a repair, or try to resolder them yourself if you like.