I understand that connecting pins to the appropriate inputs/outputs is important, but is there no way to accommodate mistakes without damaging the hardware? On two Discovery model displays I've accidentally swapped 5V and RX pin. This simple mistake seems to be the easiest way to cause enough damage to the MCU to stop communication. The wires are small and the lettering on the PCB can be difficult to see. The only failure appears to be garbled output when read requests are made to the display. All of the GUI works appropriately, and display triggers send out non-garbled outputs. I'm able to upload the display firmware from the IDE, so I assume the RX line is fine, but some other component of the MCU must have been fried.
If you connect any electronic device incorrectly, especially the power, then you risk damaging it. Sometimes you get away with it, sometime you don't.
Check your connections carefully before turning on the power, especially now you know the consequences of getting it wrong.
The Nextion discovery series: https://nextion.tech/discovery-series-introduction/
They have an extra circuit to make it compatible with 3.3V and 5V Arduino board. That gives some extra safety, but perhaps not enough.
Someone had almost the same problem, and it turns out that a GND wire was missing.
To answer your question: It is not possible to improve the reliability when wrongly connected. Everything can break. For us, it is not a simple mistake. If we make such a big mistake then we think: O well, I did that wrong, toss away the damaged components and try again with new hardware. Accept your mistakes and move on, or else you get nowhere.
@PerryBebbington What is going on ? Why are there suddenly many questions about the communication with Nextion displays. Or am I mistaken ?
I’m the “almost the same problem”.
In my defense, I’m brand new to microcontrollers and instead of powering the Nextion from the 5v on the breadboard, I powered it from the included connector to a separate 6v supply.
I had no idea, until my flash of inspiration, that the two ground’s needed to be connected.
I wondered the same thing. I guess it's down to random variations, which can result in several random events happening together.