Alvik, IDE 2 with C++

Official Hardware Education Alvik
1

I’ve just bought an Alvik.

The out-of-box experience wasn’t great - the battery had discharged well below the minimum, and was dead. Luckily, I have spares.

Using Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS, “lsusb” shows “Bus 005 Device 015: ID 2341:056b Arduino SA Nano ESP32” when the board is plugged into my laptop. My username is a member of “dialout”.

I’ve jumpered pin B1 to GND, and in the IDE selected “esptool” as the programmer, and set the board to “Arduino Nano ESP32” and the port to “/dev/ttyACM0”, but when I click “upload using programmer” for the “drive” example, the IDE runs through the compilation process, then

Sketch uses 335861 bytes (10%) of program storage space. Maximum is 3145728 bytes.
Global variables use 31912 bytes (9%) of dynamic memory, leaving 295768 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port /dev/ttyACM0
Connecting......................................

A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to ESP32-S3: No serial data received.
For troubleshooting steps visit: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esptool/en/latest/troubleshooting.html
Failed programming: uploading error: exit status 2

Yes, the board is powered, yes, I’ve hit reset. Yes, the jumper is pressed in.

Anyone familiar with this sort of thing?

2

Did you turn the Alvik off?

3
4

Yes, the Alvik is turned OFF, the correct port is selected, but the board is not an AVR board, it’s an ESP32 (hence “esptool” programmer) - is that wrong?

Also, firmware updated - using microPython, get_version() shows 1.1.1

5

I got to try this on a Windows 11 PC, and got pretty much the same result.

The device manager showed a serial device on COM3.

I tried to compile and upload (using Esptool - “esptool.py v4.5.1”) the “drive” example, and got

A fatal error occurred: failed to connect to ESP32-S3: No serial data received
Failed programming: uploading error: exit status 2

Given that I’ve managed to talk to the board using the microPython environment, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the board itself, just something I’m missing (or undocumented) with the IDE / C++ setup.

Has anyone successfully used this device with the IDE, or is there somewhere I can raise a ticket?

6

Decided to come back to this, and tried a different approach; held down the reset switch until the compilation was complete, and then got the following message

Sketch uses 336093 bytes (10%) of program storage space. Maximum is 3145728 bytes.
Global variables use 31936 bytes (9%) of dynamic memory, leaving 295744 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port /dev/ttyACM0
Connecting...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool.py", line 34, in <module>
    esptool._main()
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/__init__.py", line 1032, in _main
    main()
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/__init__.py", line 674, in main
    esp = esp or get_default_connected_device(
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/__init__.py", line 921, in get_default_connected_device
    _esp.connect(before, connect_attempts)
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/loader.py", line 640, in connect
    last_error = self._connect_attempt(reset_strategy, mode)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/loader.py", line 525, in _connect_attempt
    reset_strategy()  # Reset the chip to bootloader (download mode)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/reset.py", line 106, in __call__
    self._setRTS(True)  # Reset. Calls inverted to go through (1,1) instead of (0,0)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/*****/.arduino15/packages/esp32/tools/esptool_py/4.5.1/esptool/reset.py", line 40, in _setRTS
    self.port.setRTS(state)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/serial/serialutil.py", line 600, in setRTS
    self.rts = value
    ^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/serial/serialutil.py", line 463, in rts
    self._update_rts_state()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/serial/serialposix.py", line 706, in _update_rts_state
    fcntl.ioctl(self.fd, TIOCMBIS, TIOCM_RTS_str)
OSError: [Errno 19] No such device
Failed programming: uploading error: exit status 1

Any ideas anyone?