I’ve 3 x WittyPi4 L3V7(latest firmware version 7) in combination with a pi zero 2w and USB Hat and a 18650 battery cell,
all 3 setups worked fine for random time periods within the Cell power capability but they randomly stop working and Ineed to toggle them back on. When I try to see in the log what’s happening I don’t read anything as a statement why the board was hard powered off.
On top of that I had to reflash the firmware again on 2 of the boards as the firmware “disappeared” as I only had the blinking LED working that a battery cell is connected to the board.
A) does anyone has a clou why the board is hard powering off the pi zero 2w. Or can I get better logging features to track what happens on the board level of the WittyPi?
B) why do I have boards that I need to reflash the firmware again them?
thanks
A) does anyone has a clou why the board is hard powering off the pi zero 2w. Or can I get better logging features to track what happens on the board level of the WittyPi?
The board is powered with 18650 battery, and it is possible the battery was running out and the voltage dropped too much to keep the MCU running. If your Pi was at ON state, the voltage could drop too fast to let the Pi actually log this event; If your Pi was at OFF state, it can not log this event at all (only Witty Pi 5 HAT+ can write log when Pi is off).
We call the time window for Raspberry Pi running as a "session". Each session starts with:
[xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx] Witty Pi daemon (v4.21) is started.
and it ends with:
[20??-??-?? ??:??:??] Halting all processes and then shutdown Raspberry Pi...
Sometimes you may find some clues in the log. If the last working session is not complete, usually that was because the battery suddenly ran out and the whole device is off.
Also the battery voltage is printed in the log for every session, if the battery voltage in the last working session is already quite low (e.g. 3.3 or lower), there is very big chance that the battery ran out very quickly.
B) why do I have boards that I need to reflash the firmware again them?
Firmware should not disappear. You can see the LED blinking, that means the firmware is still there. Maybe it entered an unexpected state and it dosn't behave normally. It is hard to tell what happened without further diagnosing in such state.