Dead Puck? What to do next?

I have a Puck which seems to have died.

• I can't connect to the device via Bluetooth.
  
• If I pull the battery and reconnect it doesn't seem to help.
  
• No lights flash etc when it's power cycled (ie reconnect the battery).
  
• Pressing the button while adding the battery doesn't seem to help either (ie no lights or Bluetooth connection).
  
• I've tried 2 new batteries, so I don't think it's that.
  
  

Is there anything else I can try to bring it back to life?

you can use some SWD adapter with debugger like e.g. openocd. some ~$2 STLINK V2 clone from ebay/aliexpress or any raspberry pi would do.

check e.g. this https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Reprogrammi­ng_the_PineTime
PineTime is also nrf52 so basics are the same.

What version of Puck do you have? It should say just behind the battery.

Are you 100% sure you've got the battery around the right way? Sounds dumb but it's happened multiple times so far as there aren't clear markings :)

Also, did anything happen that might have caused it to fail? Big drops, water, connecting to something external that might be powered, etc?

The version is Puck 2.0b

Pretty sure the battery is around the right way. The writing is upwards when looking at the battery connector. I have a second puck now, and that's working with the battery in the same orientation.

It hasn't had any major knocks etc, as far as I can tell. I'm testing motion logging, so it's been in my pocket or my pillowcase the whole time. Nothing has been connected to it (other than via BT), it's been in the standard case the whole time (other than replacing the battery etc).

The only thing I can think of is that I am writing to storage on a fairly regular basis (max every 10 seconds), but I hope that should be fine.

Wow, that is strange. I guess it's possible that there was some firmware issue that overwrote the bootloader with bad data.

However there are checks in there specifically to stop that from happening (E.setFlags({unsafeFlash})).

You may well be able to connect via SWD as others have suggested, but as it's likely still under warranty maybe you could just send it back here and I'll get a replacement out to you?

Thanks @Gordon. I've only had it just over a month so I'll return it to Pimoroni when I bought it from. I have another one which will do the job for now.

Thanks again for your help

Hi Matt - I'll drop you an email now. Better to send it back to me as it just cuts out the middle man :)

Problem solved! It seems it was just a flat battery after all.