Gamebuino forum

Hello everyone,
after long time, I decided to turn on my gamebuino, but seems like it not working.

Issue no. 1 is dead battery, so I used micro USB charger

Second issue is however more serious. Seems like Gamebuino keeps restarting itself in infinite loop (backlight keeps flashing and you can hear popping sounds from speaker). Weird thing is, that when I press "B" it will fix itself for a while. Look here: http://sendvid.com/y3y1i3jr

Any suggestions how to fix it?

Exactly the same situation: found my Gamebuino after searching for ages, and getting the same flashing and clicking that OP showed on the video. Anyone have any suggestions?

Hello,
It does that clicking/flickering when the battery isn't charged enough for it to boot up. If the battery remains uncharged for along period of time, it will wear out and eventually die. It's because it's a LiPo battery, like the ones you have in your smartphones.
You can replace it with any 3.7V LiPo battery of at least 200mAh, you can find them at your usual electronics supplier.

Is it possible to turn it on without battery? Or battery is required?

I desoldered battery from PCB (actually just the red wire from battery) to make sure battery is not connected to gamebuino and I plugged in a microUSB charger, but I got same result (flashing backlight, popping sound, ...)

Thanks for responding rodot! Just wanting to check, I'm assuming something like this would work, but would the 'Integrated Protection Circuit' affect operation of the Gamebuino?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00S65G8VQ

Cheers!

The provided batteries already have an integrated protection circuit to prevent you from over-discharging them... over-discharging could make them explode in a burst of chemicals, so it's better to be safe
So the linked batteries would work fine. They are just too thick to fit in the case so you'll have to either remove the back or make a custom one (don't try to squeeze the batteries in !).

Haha, wish I'd seen your comment before I ordered them! They were too thick, but I was able to improvise:



Please excuse my shoddy soldering, first time getting out the soldering iron since high school.

I'm in the same state now, going to see if a full charge will help.

If I start up while holding the B button (for mute startup) then things actually work as expected. But the moment I do anything that would cause the speaker to buzz, it loses power and goes into its infinite boot loop until I hold B again.

But, I can load the menu, load my own programs, and as long as I'm ok with silence (and remember to hold B during startup) it seems OK. Is that a clue for anybody? Could the speaker draw too much power, or maybe it's gone bad somehow and is shorting?