Ironos: TS80P Constant Power Cycling

[sdaitzman]

I have a meeting in 1 minute, but here are the details of the power cycling issue I'm seeing for now. I'll update later with more information.

• I'm submitting a ...

  • [x] Bug report
  • [ ] Feature request
  • [ ] Translation

• Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?

Report a bug.

• What is the current behavior?

After flashing the latest release TS80P firmware (not beta 3) I'm seeing extremely rapid power-cycling. The iron powers on and off over and over again--it blinks on, just barely loads the main screen and then power cycles.

• What is the expected behavior?

Power on and allow soldering.

• If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce and if possible a minimal demo of the problem

Steps to reproduce:

1.DFU flash TS80P_en.hx from my Mac over a USBC cable
2.Plug TS80P back into Mac (it power-cycles endlessly)
3.Re-enter DFU mode and very, very quickly drag a default Miniware firmware hex from the forum onboard
4.Everything behaves normally.

Video of problem if hard to reproduce

I'll upload a video soon.

• What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?

• What are you running:

On the idle screen, you can hold the settings button and it will show you the firmware version.

• Firmware Version: 2.11.372FF8E3
• PCB Version: (1/2) unsure, where do I get this from?

• Power Supply (Voltage and Current Rating): direct from a 16-inch MacBook Pro, and from its 96W power supply.

  • Other information

[dreawer]

Can confirm about the same behaviour on my TS80P on the latest firmware (2.11). Except in my case it blinks 3 times (miniware logo -> my custom logo x 3 cycles) and than all works great.

[Ralim]

Hi,

Can you confirm if this issue was present on beta3 or not?

Also what power supplies have you tried?

I don't have access to any apple chargers to test here at the moment 😢

[sdaitzman]

@dreawer what charger hardware are you using?

[dreawer]

@sdaitzman

@dreawer what charger hardware are you using?

This one: https://a.aliexpress.com/_eKgHXj

[Ralim]

@sdaitzman @dreawer

Could you try the latest beta release to see if this works better for you 😅
Really hoping it works a bit better :)

[sdaitzman]

Thanks so much, @Ralim !

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a consistent failure to flash the new firmware. I've tried a bunch of times, so far. It always comes up with TS80P_EN.ERR or TS80P_EN.NOT.

Any advice for why this could be happening with this firmware update? Is there something I should be doing other than copying it using Finder to my TS80P in DFU mode?

[Ralim]

Hmmm.

No special magic that I'm aware of.

Are you doing the double copy, and also make sure to extract the zip first?

[sdaitzman]

What do you mean by double copy?

And do I need to extract, other than decompressing the original file to get the .hex and .bin in all those languages?

Thanks for the speedy response 😄

[Ralim]

You just have good timing 😅

Double copy:

Connect device in DFU
Copy hex file once
Device reconnects and has .ERR
Copy file again
Device reconnects and has ERR and RDY

Extract:
Just don't try and drag the .hex from inside the zip. Put the hex file in your downloads or somewhere.
You don't need any of the other files :)

[sdaitzman]

I managed to do the upgrade!

Unfortunately, it still has the same issue as before 😢

[Ralim]

Gah damnit.

:/

I might just have to order an apple power adapter to figure it out :/

Sorry about that

[sdaitzman]

Is there any other useful debug info I could provide from here?

[dreawer]

@Ralim , thank you!

For me it works better, no more blinking after connecting the power supply.
And no issues with flashing the latest beta.

@sdaitzman @dreawer

Could you try the latest beta release to see if this
works better for you 😅
Really hoping it works a bit better :)

[discip]

@sdaitzman
Would you please check, if the latest commit https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS/commit/f3488d7ee354cf3a5c617282a8bd4b09c3edd9ea works for you, since there have been quite a lot of updates since your last reply.
And if so, please close this issue.
thanks

[sdaitzman]

Happy to check!

[sdaitzman]

Sadly still encountering the same issue 😞

[hhammarstrand]

I got my ts80p today, and got the same issue. It would just constantly power cycle.

I might have found a solution though.
I flashed this hex file https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS/actions/runs/492188523 (not sure if it matters if you use this version or the latest release, I did try the latest release first and that didn't work, and then I tried this one which didn't work until I did a factory reset) and then when connected directly to my laptops USB C port (5v) I did a factory reset. Disconnected and then it worked with an external power brick. I'm using the 18w power brick I got with an iPad Air (4?) latest gen

Would you mind trying this workaround @sdaitzman ?

Edit: I got curious to see if I could get the latest release on my iron and couldn't get it working again, until I tried the following:

• Flash latest release with swedish translation (_SV)
• Plug in and out the iron without entering DFU and let it start
• Flash the linked release without translation (_EN)
• Factory reset while connected to the 5v power source

I couldn't get this to work with the latest release of _EN instead of the linked one.

Edit (again...): had the iron sitting connected since I wrote the last update, and now it has began powercycling again. Reverted to stock firmware. Sad, because IronOS was way better! If I can provide any help to resolve this I would gladly help.

[sdaitzman]

Still encountering the issue, but I've made several odd discoveries that I think could help:

I'm still encountering the same issue, and wanted to clarify that the power-cycling also occurs when the iron is attached to my MacBook Pro 16" with the USB-C cable it came with. It does not power-cycle when in DFU mode.

I also noticed that when heating to a high temperature, the iron sometimes maintains its status without crashing for longer periods of time, which seems odd to me?? It usually restarts every few seconds when plugged into my MacBook Pro power supply. Just now I was curious and tried powering the heat back on each and every time it crashed and rebooted. Once it reached around 300, it stopped power-cycling!! It stayed on for several minutes. I rebooted it and it started crashing again, but I upped the temperature and observed that it stayed on for a few minutes again. And, perhaps most strangely, it was able to enter sleep mode and begin ramping the temperature down to 150 (and is currently maintaining that) without any crashes!!

[sdaitzman]

Update: maintained for like 5 minutes of no-crashes, and when I picked it up just now it reheated to around 360 with no trouble!! This is a kinda questionable and unreliable workaround but it seems that once it's heated above a certain temperature, it's usable... any clue what could be causing that behavior? Happy to try additional things, send along a video, or do whatever else I can to help debug this ☺️

[hhammarstrand]

@sdaitzman do you get 9v or 5v out of your mbp? I get 5v from my lenovo, and it always works with that, both in dfu and when it's flashed. When I connect to 9v+ it does begin to powercycle.

[paulfertser]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 10:55:37AM -0800, Sam Daitzman wrote:

Update: maintained for like 5 minutes of no-crashes, and when I picked it up
just now it reheated to around 360 with no trouble!! This is a kinda
questionable and unreliable workaround but it seems that once it's
heated above

Your description mostly sound like a voltage drop when it starts to
consume above a certain power threshold. Have you tried the power
limiting feature? What did you set it to? Does it reboot even if it's
just 10 W?

--
Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software!
mailto:[email protected]

[sdaitzman]

Screen displays 5, but it reboots so fast (~1-2 sec max) I don't know if it's briefly negotiating a higher voltage and just hasn't updated :/

[sdaitzman]

@paulfertser I'm a little confused by that, but maybe I'm not understanding -- to be clear, it's working much _more reliably_ when it is set to a high temperature.

I tried limiting power to 10W while plugged into the supplied power supply, then plugged into both my MacBook and its charger, and sadly no change in behavior at all.

[Pythe1337N]

Hi! I also have this issue and maybe can help by adding some information.
My MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019) have this issue with both it's usb ports and the supplied charger.
However, my older MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016) does not. Both the usb port and the charger works as expected.
Both changers are rated the same (USB-PD 3A @ 9V) but clearly they differ.

Summary:
Running v2.14.1

• MacBook 2019
  
  
  
  • Boot loop when connecting to laptop's usb port (iron displays 5V and reboots after ~1s)
  
  
  • Boot loop when connecting to Apple charger (iron displays 9V and reboots after ~3s)
  
  
  • DFU mode also stuck by boot loop
  
  
• MacBook 2016
  
  
  
  • Works when connecting to laptop's usb port (iron displays 4V reboot when trying to start heating)
  
  
  • Works when connecting to Apple charger (iron briefly displays 5V, reboots, then displays 9V)
  
  
  • DFU mode works as expected
  
  
• Chinese charger supplied with the iron (Travel Charger QC09)
  
  
  
  • Everything works as expected
  
  

Hopefully this might give someone a clue to what has changed with these chargers

[hhammarstrand]

I changed out my apple power brick to a Otterbox 18w instead and the standard firmware warns for low voltage, but IronOS works great! Finally!

[ffuubarbuzz]

I'm experiencing the same with 2019 MacBook adapter and pinecil.

[BuToNz]

Same issue here with: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07Q39W5JB

Latest version of the firmware. What's odd is maybe once in every 20 connects it will work fine and get 12v/30w. Some sort of handshaking issue?

[x70b1]

I have the same issues with a Lenovo 65W Adapter and the TS80P.

It looks like PD is a problem. Using a Qualcom Quick Charge 3.0 works fine. Runs at 9V.
Also the vendor firmware works with that Lenovo adapter.

[xoniq]

Got my TS80P today, I tried it on the Apple charger, worked fine, and heated to 300 in seconds. This was when brand new. After flashing this IronOS, it doesn't work anymore (same issue as OP), I re-flashed the OG firmware, and now it works fine again.

Any possible fix upcoming?

[xxv]

Just to add some data points for narrowing this down. I've got a TS80P that I purchased just a few days ago and installed 2.14.1 on it.

• Anker 30W PD port: gave me a boot loop (flash the miniware logo). The vendor firmware did not have this issue with the same power supply.
• The PD charger that came with the iron (model QC09, PD+QC3.0 45W): It starts on first boot and negotiates 12V.
• Lenovo 65W charger: takes 3 boots (flashes miniware logo three times) and only negotiates 5V (the charger supports 5, 9, 15, and 20V). I seem to recall this PD charger worked properly with the stock firmware.
• Anker 60W charger: starts on first boot, negotiates 9V.
• CanaKit 3.5A USB-C supply: starts on first boot, negotiates (honestly not sure if PD or not) 6V.
• Leviton T5633-W 15A outlet (non-PD): starts on first boot, 5V. (only supports 5V)
• Pixel 3a stock charger: starts on first boot, negotiates 9V.

That's all the USB-C power supplies I could find in the house. Based on this, fingers are pointing strongly at PD negotiation.

[alvinhochun]

You should test the build in PR #917

[xoniq]

You should test the build in PR #917

Ill try too with my Apple charger.

Edit; just replaced the hex, and well it seems to have solved with my Apple charger (Negotiating 9V).

Just before I flashed; I checked, and it failed on my Apple charger. 10s later updated, and working. Also let it reach the 320 degrees 2 times in a row.