Yesterday, my code worked nicely at first, but without any code changes it stopped working after I soldered the arduino to a protoboard. I took care not to put the soldering iron on it for more than a second, and used a really low-temperature solder with a really low temperature setting on my soldering iron. After soldering, I can still communicate with the WiFi chip, as the example sketches for scanning networks don't complain that they can't find the module. I can fetch the firmware version for it as well.
But any task that involves the antenna seem to fail. ScanNetworks gives me 0 available networks, and my program gets stuck on trying to connect. Could I have overheated the antenna or am I using any pins that should be reserved for the WiFi chip? I am using pins 0 to 11 and the 5v, vcc and ground.
I tried upgrading the firmware version to the latest (1.2.1) in case I had ran into some bug with voltage instabilities or something (unlikely, I know... But at least I tried to fix it :)). The upgrade completed without any issues and the CheckFirmwareVersion example shows the correct firmware version.
01ste02:
without any code changes it stopped working after I soldered the arduino to a protoboard.
The metal on the proto board might be interfering with reception of the antenna. What happens if you move the MKR WiFi 1010 + protoboard close to your WiFi router with the top of the MKR WiFi 1010 pointed toward the router's antenna?
01ste02:
am I using any pins that should be reserved for the WiFi chip? I am using pins 0 to 11 and the 5v, vcc and ground.
Luckily, the ATSAMDG21 microcontroller on the MKR WiFi 1010 has enough pins that it can have dedicated pins for communication with the WiFi module, which are not broken out as standard IO pins on the board. However, the crypto chip on the board is connected to the I2C bus and the crypto chip is used for authentication of network communication. It's attached to pins 11 and 12. The battery charger chip is also connected to pins 11 and 12. You can share the I2C bus with multiple I2C devices, but you should avoid using those pins for any non-I2C uses unless you are certain you won't have problems from it interfering with the use of the crypto and battery charger chips.
pert:
The metal on the proto board might be interfering with reception of the antenna. What happens if you move the MKR WiFi 1010 + protoboard close to your WiFi router with the top of the MKR WiFi 1010 pointed toward the router's antenna?
Didn't think about that... But the proto board is of this type, so there isn't really much metal there...
pert:
Luckily, the ATSAMDG21 microcontroller on the MKR WiFi 1010 has enough pins that it can have dedicated pins for communication with the WiFi module, which are not broken out as standard IO pins on the board. However, the crypto chip on the board is connected to the I2C bus and the crypto chip is used for authentication of network communication. It's attached to pins 11 and 12. The battery charger chip is also connected to pins 11 and 12. You can share the I2C bus with multiple I2C devices, but you should avoid using those pins for any non-I2C uses unless you are certain you won't have problems from it interfering with the use of the crypto and battery charger chips.
I have a AM2301 sensor attached on pin 11, but I will desolder it and see what happens. I am officially out of pins
Holding it directly on top of the router doesn't work either, still stuck on "Connecting to SSID: xxx"...
Saw your reply on GitHub. And I agree completely, I just didn't think about this forum at first
I desoldered that sensor as well as the power to my 5V level shifter. After that, it works. I have relays attached to the arduino. It is a really ghetto solution, but do you think I could simply connect the sensor to an NC relay, open the relay whenever I am authenticating to a network and thus disabling the sensor temporarily, and then close it again when it is done?
I'm glad you found the culprit at least. That's a good start!
You say you're using pins 0-11. What about pins 13, 14, and A0-A6? Unlike boards such as the Uno, which use the RX and TX pins for communication with the computer, the MKR WiFi 1010 doesn't use those pins for anything and so you're free to use them for whatever purpose you like. They do have serial capabilities (Serial1), but you aren't required to use them for that purpose. In addition to allowing use with analogRead(), the analog pins can all be used as regular digital pins instead if you like.
pert:
I'm glad you found the culprit at least. That's a good start!
You say you're using pins 0-11. What about pins 13, 14, and A0-A6? Unlike boards such as the Uno, which use the RX and TX pins for communication with the computer, the MKR WiFi 1010 doesn't use those pins for anything and so you're free to use them for whatever purpose you like. They do have serial capabilities (Serial1), but you aren't required to use them for that purpose. In addition to allowing use with analogRead(), the analog pins can all be used as regular digital pins instead if you like.
Thanks for telling me about pins 13 and 14! I hadn't realized that. I am reserving the analog pins for a future expansion, 8 relays aren't enough, so I ordered 6 more. I took over control over basically all of our outside lightning, and they were all on separate circuits for some reason.
Thanks for all the help! I will change this to "solved" once I solder the things back into place.
Thanks you again, I was about to go and buy a new one before you replied...
