DIY: norns shield

[optiminimal]

You are a better person than I am
Success

[sleeepwalk]

Just got my shield in and it’s already become a huge part of my setup. It’s got me posting other gear to get a grid but mainly now I’m just using reels and it’s everything I loved about the op-1.

But few questions

1. The guy I bought it from said to make sure you put it into a sleep cycle. How necessary is this. Also is there anyway to power it down without unplugging it. I can see why the og Norns is worth it just because of the casing. I’m a little worried about the continued unplugging of the power supply.

2. Is the only way to delete files to connect to a WiFi source?

3. Will I lose any files when updating and connecting to a new WiFi network?

[okyeron]

@sleeepwalk

The guy I bought it from said to make sure you put it into a sleep cycle. How necessary is this. Also is there anyway to power it down without unplugging it.

SLEEP is powering it down. This may not clear any text from the oled display because the oled still has power going to it.

I suggest using a USB cable (or power supply) with a switch in it.

@sleeepwalk

Is the only way to delete files to connect to a WiFi source?

You can also connect via ethernet, but you do generally need to do file management over a network. You can also make the shield a Wifi hotspot if you’re not near other networks.

@sleeepwalk

Will I lose any files when updating and connecting to a new WiFi network?

No, you should not.

[outoftunewolf]

So, i ran my norns shield without a case flawlessly for some time. I recently put an acrylic front and back on. Now when i boot the device i get a black screen. reflashed the disk and without the case, it was fine. put it back on and same results. has this happen to anyone else before? I wondered if there was a static charge in acrylic that is causing an issue. no idea though.

[bemerritt]

Make sure the pins on the screen and the bottom of the pi aren’t coming in contact with the case.

[outoftunewolf]

Going to have to see if this works but this latest flash job resulted in a flipped screen and none of the buttons or encoders working. thats a new one…

sigh… nothing but trouble lately.

[Cementimental]

Finally soldered mine! Now to figure out the software side

EDIT: OK turns out my CeX rasp pi is (surprise surprise) DOA.

[cliffemu]

how can I get the hdmi out to work? I’m just seeing the rainbow on my monitor. I’d like to access the desktop like when connecting via VNC, and use a keyboard and mouse as well. Thanks…

[huron]

Doesn’t work like that. There is no HDMI output for the Shield.

[cliffemu]

the rpi has an hdmi out. Why shouldn’t it display the desktop like it does when I VNC in?

[wheelersounds]

Matron is sufficient for most people’s interaction with Norns, but if you want to activate it for fun I believe you can either do it through raspi-config or you can alter a config file, though I can’t remember which one. A google should help.
Unless the OS image is headless, in which case it won’t work I don’t think. I haven’t bothered trying, myself.

[okyeron]

I believe it’s disabled in /boot/config.txt

I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I think the HDMI being active ends up with a conflict with the display framebuffer, so norns output will go to the HDMI and not the OLED.

[PerVildman]

Hi. My channels are also swapped…and I really want to fix it! Very confusing. But I really don’t understand how to do it… Should I put this text in (stereo swap issue) from the github? And if yes…where and how? Sorry, I’m so much of a newbie

[Cementimental]

Finally got a working Pi, (testing it with Raspbian made me kind of want to get a 2nd one just for general computer tinkering :-/) and the Norns shield physically works, I’m getting an error on startup tho… Reading previous threads to try and figure out why.

[robotfunk]

I think that is normal for a first boot, does it go away after a sleep?

[Cementimental]

Doesn’t seem to. I did realise from posts upthread that I’d soldered the crystal on backwards :-/ fixed that but still no luck either. I am now re-flashing the SD card in case I corrupted something, as I did unplug the power without Sleeping earlier.

EDIT: redid the SD cart, updated norns via wifi. After the update it says “shutting down” for ages, no green light activity on the Pi so I unplugged and restarted, still says “supercollider fail”.

Tried ;restart using Maiden and got this:

BATTERY: FAIL.
ERROR (i2c/hp) failed to write
*** WARNING *** The program 'matron' uses the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi.
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see <http://0pointer.de/avahi-compat?s=libdns_sd&e=matron>
OSC rx port: 8888 
OSC crone port: 9999
OSC ext port: 57120
starting lua vm
running lua config file: dofile('/home/we/norns/lua/core/config.lua')
MATRON
norns version: 0.0.0
git hash: e08e27d
running startup
start_audio(): 
# script clear
norns.startup_status.timeout
### SCRIPT ERROR: SUPERCOLLIDER FAIL

If I try to load anything eg Awake, it loads the description but then when I try to start, just stops on ‘loading…’ forever. I can exit this and go back to the menu, not a complete crash

# script load: /home/we/dust/code/awake/awake.lua

# cleanup

# script clear

ERROR (i2c/hp) failed to write

including /home/we/dust/code/awake/lib/halfsecond.lua

pset >> write: /home/we/dust/data/system.pset

# script run

loading engine: PolyPerc

>> reading PMAP /home/we/dust/data/awake/awake.pmap

m.read: /home/we/dust/data/awake/awake.pmap not read.

[bemerritt]

Just so you know, the shutting down will stay there until you remove power. As such, a power cord with a switch is very useful.

[Cementimental]

thanks, good to know that was OK,

not sure what to try next troubleshooting-wise… Went over my solder joints esp. the DAC and crystal and resoldered suspect ones, bit messy but all look like they should work, no obvious missed ones or shorts.

maybe a different SD card?

EDIT: tried a sandisk card instead of my cheap banggood card, still no joy. Any other ideas/info appreciated!

[Nu_Gravity]

First: Bad solder DAC, and maybe Crystal

check the position of the crystal

numbers should be readable and not reversed

under a magnifying glass, check the legs of the dac, with a needle

[zebra]

first, in the web interface:

• switch over to the supercollider REPL and enter ;restart to see bootup errors from supercollider. easiest thing would be just a conflict between SC engines (did you install any scripts in ~/dust/code yet?)

if that doesn’t reveal anything:

• shell in over ssh or the serial port if you can
• run dmesg to look for explicit errors from the sound card driver (as in this post above)
• try running sclang in the terminal (you may catch earlier errors this way)
• try lower level audio stack components like aplay

if the soundcard driver and audio stack are fully borked, then i’d agree that it’s likely an electrical fault interfering with the crystal and/or codec. (said fault may not be in close proximity on the board - e.g. the OLED headers seem to be a hot zone for badness.)