It’s currently being tested for the TBeam, the GitHub details are here
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Yes, that would be handy! Save reprogramming it every time… i see its currently being tested on the Tbeam… but I prefer the Heltec boards if im honest! The issues with Tbeam GPS puts me off a little…
Alan
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Heltec Wireless Tracker can also be tested for “moving” iGates in this “beta testing” time
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Hello OMs,
Made Google Chrome extension for pass code generator. Hope you guys like it.
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Just an anecdote from the weekend: I took my tracker on one of my regular 10k runs on Saturday morning and due to the unbelievable amount of rain we’ve had in Shropshire over the last couple of weeks I had to wade through several huge stretches of water on the back lanes. One of these “puddles” had a lot of invisible (from the surface) silt in the bottom and as soon as I stepped in it my foot slid right out in front of me…after somehow staying upright while sliding forward on one leg for a couple of seconds, I then fell backwards into the water. Thankfully nobody was around to witness this… Unfortunately my tracker was in a rear pocket and it got squashed and totally immersed in water. It stopped working immediately - not really surprising given water was dripping out of it and so I shoved it in my pocket and continued home annoyed and thinking I’d need to order a new Heltec Wireless Tracker board…
On closer inspection when I got home, I found that the tracker case had split and cracked, and there is a big dent in the SX1262 metal enclosure on the rear of the board where the battery pushed into it when it got squashed. The screen was also fogged up with moisture. I thought it was a lost cause, but, incredibly after drying it out in the sun for a couple of hours, it is now working again…!! Hooray!
So all well that ends well (although my rear end also has a lovely case shaped bruise on it. 
). I’ll probably be carrying the tracker in a different pocket from now on!
8 Likes
I have a fix for the temperamental button where it often fails to recognise a single, double or triple click making accessing the menu very frustrating.
It’s available on my fork of Ricardo’s repo at GitHub - G4TGJ/LoRa_APRS_Tracker at button-interrupt.
I’ve created a pull request so hopefully @CA2RXU will incorporate this into the main build.
I have only tested it on the Heltec Wireless Tracker so if anyone would like to try it on another board that would be very welcome.
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will try to check it very soon!
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CALLING FOR TESTERS!
If you have somehow boot loop on the Heltec Wireless Tracker there is a fix to test:
add an electrolytic Capacitor 100uF /16V (could be 9V or more but 16V is pretty common) between pin 5 (3.3V) and 4 (GND) which will solve the drop in voltage at startup
Please test and return with results 
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I concur Ricardo, a 100uF cap across P2.4 and P2.5 does appear to stop the boot loop issue when BLE mode is enabled. Presumably this is because the ESP32-S3FN8 (U7) is taking a large gulp of juice when BT is enabled (on startup), and the existing decoupling/reservoir caps across U7s power rails are insufficient to stop the 3v3 rail dipping.
I initially tried a 100uF polarized capacitor (Tant) but it was a tad big for the case. A 100uF MLLC ceramic (1210) SMD cap appears to work equally well:
and doesn’t interfere with the mounting rails on the case
There’s probably a better location closer to U7, I will investigate in the morning.
Dave
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Does it have to be 100uF? I don’t have any caps of that value that are really small. I could parallel 0805 10uF but 10 of them might be a little tricky.
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Yeah 
that’s fixed it for me.
The only thing I had that fit, were some 220uF SMD Tants.
They fit nicely at the side of the display.
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others have been testing this too so its seems the solution has been founded… should we wait for more to test or should we tell the good news right away?
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100uF has worked for my tracker too. I found a small 100uF 16V THT electrolytic that will fit in the case. I tried some smaller values too but up to 33uF didn’t work.
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Unfortunately I’m not sure the 100uF is helping after all. It was working fine last night and then I took it out on an activation today with BLE enabled. I noticed that as soon as it got a GPS position and sent a spot it rebooted. It just kept cycling like this. The battery eventually went flat and now I have the USB plugged in it is going through a continuous boot cycle again.
It’s possible the capacitor I used is no good - I think it may have come from an eBay pack a few years ago. I always buy decent components from proper suppliers now.
I’ll investigate further tomorrow.
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Surely the inrush current charging the capacitor will cause the rail to drop more? For this fix to work, the BLE switch on would need to be delayed until after the capacitor is charged? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding this?
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Looking at the code, the BLE isn’t started until after the first screen is displayed. So I can only assume this is enough time for the capacitor to charge.
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I think those pads are connected to the output of the 3.3V regulator, which is always powered on as long as there is battery power so it should be fully charged before the tracker boots up?
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crazy idea:
150-180mA more or less is what the board uses “momentary” for the packet TX, could it be that the battery can’t deliver this ?? I mean, is low current and the 3.3V regulator should handle this effortlessly … but I’m running out of ideas
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I think the capacitor I used was crap. As I said it came out of an eBay selection pack and we all know how “good” eBay components are.
I’ve changed it for a quality 100uF 50V (RS 865-0616 made by Panasonic) and it is now working fine. Of course this is much bigger. I might be able to squeeze it into the case and connect it via some flexible wire. Or I’ll have to order some SMT ceramics like Dave @M0JKS has but that will have to wait until I next need to order other stuff.
I’ll leave it running to see if it keeps going.
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It’s still not right. Having left the tracker for a while it is back in the reboot cycle. It comes up, displays the main screen, decides it’s time to send a packet and reboots. I can see the voltage is 3.65V. Is the regulator linear and what’s the drop out voltage? Voltage is sagging too low when it transmits and the BLE is on?
1 Like