Power light doesn't stay lit up anymore

bobert1l

Hi all,

I just bought a BASIC Stamp HomeWork Board with the "What's a Microcontroller?" book today at RadioShack and it was working for a short while, but now the power light won't stay lit anymore.· I've tried a new 9v battery (even though I knew the other battery should still work since I just bought it today) and the other new battery didn't help.· The green power light on the HomeWork Board lights for a fraction of a second when I touch the battery terminals to the battery connections on the board, but then the power light goes out.· The battery doesn't actually fit (i.e. I can't plug it in correctly because the board's terminals are slightly too far apart), so I have just been touching them together, not actually plugging the battery in until it clicks as you would normally do.· Does this sound like a defective board?· It was working fine for about an hour (off and on, not straight through the whole time) while I went through the activities in the book, but then the BASIC Stamp Editor complained when I tried to run another activity.· It said "No BASIC Stamps found".· That's when I noticed that the green light was no longer lit up.·

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bob
·

MrBi11

The Green Light is a "Run" light not a "Power" light

It will stay lit as long as your program is running, if your program ends the light will go out.

Try connecting the battery and uploading this program to clear the chip:

---

' {$STAMP BS2}
' {$PBASIC 2.5}
DATA 0 (2040)
END

---

After you've done that [noparse][[/noparse]the light will be out]

then uploading just a never ending loop

---

' {$STAMP BS2}
' {$PBASIC 2.5}
Main:
GOTO Main

---

After uploading this 'loop' the light should continue to stay lit.

Of course the next project you upload will overwrite that and the light may or may not stay lit.
Experiment and you'll understand what the LED status means.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Smile ... It increases your face value!

bobert1l

Hi MrBi11,

Thanks for the reply.· What you are saying is different than what I observed because when·I first opened the box, I performed one of the activities before installing the editor software and before connecting the board to my computer via the serial cable.· The power light on the board (which says "Power" and is a tiny green light) was always ON when I had the battery terminals touching the board's connectors.· When I would remove the battery, the light would turn off.· It doesn't do that now.· Maybe it wasn't supposed to do that, but it was.

I just tried an experiment by plugging in an LED and resistor and holding the battery firmly against the connectors with my fingers.· This time the LED did light up, so I ran a loop as you suggested and I was able to get it to work, so there is definitely something wrong with the connection that is causing this problem.· I was also just able to force the battery into its connectors, so maybe I'm good to go now.· Hopefully I can remove the battery when I'm done.· :-)· Otherwise, I'll exchange it for another one at RadioShack.

Thanks for your help!

Bob