teenage engineering op-1 not charging via usb

No idea why.
Has anyone ever come across this??

I haven’t used the unit in a while, and last time I used it, I believe I intentionally left it on so that it would drain the battery fully (hadn’t done that since I’d bought it).

I tried a different cable this morning, and for some miraculous reason, it powered up with it.
Now it’s doing the same thing it did w/ the other cable, and I cannot get it to turn on or give me an indicator light (meter) that it is charging via 5v usb.

thanks for any advice or thoughts…

I imagine you must have tried this already, but in case you haven’t… There’s been a few times where I couldn’t power on the OP-1 with the USB connected to the computer. Disconnecting the USB, I could then power on the OP-1.

I hadn’t tried that specific sequence before, but just did - no dice. :’(

have you tried to charge it at least a few hours (while it’s turned off)? I did it with mine for 24hrs after the battery was completely empty.

Leaving a lithium-ion battery fully discharged is very bad for them, and may never come back (as above try leaving on charge for a day or 2 using USB phone charger - not computer). Storage of lithium-ion batteries at 80% charge is best.


Do the charge lights come on when you plug in the charger?

Turn on and connect ,disconnect ,reconnect USB many types can kick start an OP-1 that isn’t playing/booting.Basicly @LibertineLush method but repeated.

If the battery is completely empty then it may take hours and hours for it to even look like it’s springing back to life.

when i recieved mine for the first time it didnt charge and i just changed the cable using one from a portable HDD and it worked fine, i reported to my reseller and they send me a new cable.

Is it possible that the unit got switched into ‘OPT’ mode (in the ‘COM’ menu)? This would stop it charging via USB when the unit is powered on. In this case, it would still charge via USB when powered off. Just a thought.


CB
Leaving a lithium-ion battery fully discharged is very bad for them, and may never come back (as above try leaving on charge for a day or 2 using USB phone charger - not computer). Storage of lithium-ion batteries at 80% charge is best.

Do the charge lights come on when you plug in the charger?


Thanks for your reply. Very informative to know this data point regarding lithium-ion batteries.
To your question: No, they don’t.
This is what I’m most concerned about, but I suppose it’s possible that because the unit is already charged, it won’t give me a readout on the lights?

have you tried to charge it at least a few hours (while it's turned off)? I did it with mine for 24hrs after the battery was completely empty.

Yes, I tried charging it over night, then nearly an entire day.
I had some success turning it on (briefly) yesterday and today, but what I’m seeing is that it might be a different issue than what I’d originally anticipated. It seems that the board’s communication with the CPU might be faulty.

Around 25% of the time, I turn the unit on and I can hear the little noise blip in the speaker, but cannot see anything on the screen… which leads me to believe that the unit might actually be powering on and just not displaying.

Is it possible that the unit got switched into 'OPT' mode (in the 'COM' menu)? This would stop it charging via USB when the unit is powered on. In this case, it would still charge via USB when powered off. Just a thought.

CB

I noticed this yesterday. Yes, this was a good thing to troubleshoot. Alas, I think I had it set correctly (green lightning icon), but I will test more with it on/off.

Turn on and connect ,disconnect ,reconnect USB many types can kick start an OP-1 that isn't playing/booting.Basicly @LibertineLush method but repeated.

I wonder why I would need to repeat this in any way whatsoever. Have you come across this issue before?
Have other people seen an “OP-1 that isn’t playing/booting”? I haven’t heard of such a thing, but I suppose this could be more of a widespread issue than I thought…

when i recieved mine for the first time it didnt charge and i just changed the cable using one from a portable HDD and it worked fine, i reported to my reseller and they send me a new cable.

Yes, I thought it was the cable at first too.
It turned out that I was just “lucky that time” and that the cable being switched was incidental to it powering on correctly.

mine has done that before, several times, the little blip of noise and nothing on the screen and not charging, but it’s always recovered eventually.


I want to say that at one point @punji was speculating flash bootloader corruption or something.
If the battery is completely empty then it may take hours and hours for it to even look like it's springing back to life.

K - I think I’ll do the rest of my testing with a normal USB charger. It’s too iffy to do this with a computer that is either going to sleep on me or not necessarily providing 5V from the power bus reliably. It’s not that I don’t trust the computer for this (and of course I can disable auto sleep in prefs), but I need to eliminate variables so that I have sensible data to report to TE. Regardless, I think that it must be charged properly, since when I am able to load and hit the ‘comment’ button, I do see the meter rise into the red area.

mine has done that before, several times, the little blip of noise and nothing on the screen and not charging, but it's always recovered eventually.

I want to say that at one point @punji was speculating flash bootloader corruption or something.
If so, is there anything to do about this?

I’ve always just left it plugged in until it would finally turn on, and then charge it while left on

gotcha - funny that you said that… this is precisely what i’m testing at this moment. :slight_smile:

with the unit on, i hold the ‘help’ button. i see that the lights are illuminating in sequence rapidly… that is, they go from 0, to a number of green, to more green, to red and repeat in this cycle. does this indicate that the battery is charging, or that it is fully charged?