My Papilio One Makes Noise


Emperor Napoleon

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I just got my papilio today and when I plug it in I can hear a wee bit of hissing coming out of it.   :blink: Not a problem, I am just wondering why this is happening and what part is causing this. :)  I don't see any moving parts or inductors. :wacko: My best guess is the crystal resonator but i have never heard one of those making sound before.  :D

 

thanks!

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Woah! I have never heard of that either. We better exchange that board so I can take a look at it. Do you see any obvious damage or anything?

 

Please send us an email to support@gadgetfactory.net with your mailing address, a link to this forum topic, and what type of board it is and we will send out a replacement.

 

Sorry about that.

Jack.

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Are you sure it's coming from the board itself and not from the computer? One of my laptops makes a faint hissing noise sometimes depending on what it's doing. It's difficult to tell where the sound is coming from. Unless this is the Pro, I can't think of anything that would make a noise on the P1.

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Yep, I'm completely sure it's coming from the board itself. Other things I've noticed: Sometimes the hissing abruptly starts or stops, although generally it will be hissing. 

 

It's the board with the linear regulators (papilio one). They do get warm indeed. 

 

I kind of don't want to have to send it back, I already flashed it with ZPUino and it looks to be working fine. I'm having too much fun with it already!

 

The board looks completely flawless in every way.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

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  • 3 months later...

Update: Replacement board worked well and did not make noise, made good progress on a project. That board is now fried, a couple days ago.

 

Ordered a new one on sparkfun, guess what, it makes hissing noises. It has intermittent usb serial communication errors with both RX and TX. While it's possible something else has changed that is causing errors, It might also be related to some defect that is causing noise.

 

I think there are also pretty bad issues with usb connector quality. Tried 3 different cables of different brands, they all have intermittent connections when the plug is slightly wiggled in its socket. This is true for every papilo board i have tried.

 

Can I have a new non hissing board please?

 

Thanks

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It seems that most mini and micro USB connectors out there are a bit loose-fitting. I've always assumed the wiggle room is deliberate and provides a little bit of strain relief to reduce the chance of tearing the surface mount connectors off the board.

 

If anyone ever figures out the source of the hissing sound, I'd be really curious to hear what it was. I suppose it could be a harmonic of the oscillator frequency, or possibly an oscillation causing mechanical vibration in a capacitor. There simply aren't many parts that are able to make noise.

 

The different brand of oscillator doesn't surprise me terribly. It's common for parts like that to come from multiple sources depending on who has the lowest price. It's also possible that being an open-source device, there may be multiple places producing their own copies.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update:

 

Now i have the replacement board side by side with the one from sparkfun. Flashed identically. Same ZPU program. The two boards behave quite differently when talking to the host PC over serial. The replacement is mostly fine, the sparkfun has many bad errors.

 

Near as I can tell, the errors are basically chunks of missing bytes on TX and RX.  But maybe I am missing something.

 

Now maybe I am using the serial port is some dangerous manner. I can't think of what that would be. If anyone is really interested I can post some monster (large and ugly) ZPU code and host Perl program.

 

But what is clear at this point is the two boards, are not behaving logically equivalent.

 

Clearly the serial is working under some conditions, otherwise how would I be able to flash it, and upload ZPU code. Maybe it only affects half of the dual serial. Or something. Ugh.

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Its unusual that you've had the bad luck of getting two problem boards, there really are just a handful of boards that make it through the factory testing with any problems. I'm glad you have a working one now, if any reason for the boards having problems comes to mind please don't hesitate to share your ideas.

 

Thanks,
Jack.

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  • 1 month later...

Jack did you ever find out what was making noise on the board? I'm very curious :) Since there are no switch mode PSUs or other coils on the board there is nothing I can think of that could make audible noise. The only other thing that could make noise is something getting really hot, but that would also smell too, and make smoke. So I find this very intriguing, hence the resurrection of this topic.

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