STEVAL-WESU1 battery not charging

[TAswi.1]

Hello!

I recently bought an STEVAL-WESU1 sensor unit. However, when I connected the USB cable to the circuit board, the on board RED LED keeps blinking. According to the documentation it should be steadily lit to indicate charging.

Would you be able to give me any tips in debugging? I apologize for the trivial nature of the question.

I thank you very much in advance.

[Eleon BORLINI]

Hi @TAswi.1​ ,

I'm not an expert on this design kit, so I'm currently checking internally for support.

If you have prepared the tool as described in the Getting started guide and you are facing the issue, you should first check if you are in a "charging failure" condition, from the one described in the user manual:

Red LED flashing: charging failure (e.g., overtemperature, three-wire battery not connected), or battery not present. 

In particular: is the battery correctly connected to the board? Or is the battery not ok?

As a side test, since the central MCU should be powered not only from the battery, but also from the USB connection, you could disconnect the battery leaving only the USB plugged, and try to connect it to the STBLESensor smartphone app and check if you can detect the board scanning the bluetooth device with it.

-Eleon

[Peter BENSCH]

The battery may be deeply discharged, so you will usually need to replace the battery.

You can try and measure the cell voltage between the red and black wires. The battery is pretty dead when it is well below 2V and dead dead at << 1V

Good luck and regards

/Peter

[Eleon BORLINI]

Please check also the stability of the battery connector (board side): it could be a little fragile.

-Eleon

[TWest.3]

Hi there!

I am having the same issue as above with the STEVAL-WESU1. The unit is fresh out of the box. The unit is connected to a USB power supply and I have successfully connected it to BLE via my windows 10 PC, and can see the logged sensor readings in Unicleo-GUI. The battery status in Unicleo-GUI seems to alternate between "Plugged Not Charging" and "Charging" - but there is 0 voltage or current displayed, and battery level is 0%.

When plugged in to USB - the unit shows both a flashing red and white light. I have double checked the battery connector and everything seems firmly in place and all contacts are intact and undistorted.

The battery is straight out of the box and never been used, I have tried to measure the voltage between the black and red contacts but am getting 0v.

Can you suggest anything to get this up and running?

Thanks so much!

Tim

[Peter BENSCH]

As already mentioned: If the battery is deeply discharged and there is no voltage between its contacts, it can no longer be charged and must be replaced.

You should check the datecode (indicated with YYWW, i.e. year and calender week) of the kit and, if necessary, complain to the seller - if it is not much older than about 2 years (self-discharge of the battery).

Good luck!

/Peter

[TWest.3 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your response!

The issue was resolved by just leaving the unit to charge overnight. The flashing red light has stopped and the unit is now charging as expected.

Best

Tim