MKR1000 failed after resting

Hardware MKR Family MKR1000
1

Hello,

Here is some background; I am new to posting on this forum, however, I am not new to Arduino. I have plenty of experience with the lesser boards (Uno and such). Recently I received the Arduino engineering kit and was working through it. I have made it to the rover, specifically section 5.3, and I was interrupted with my project, so the rover has sat, undisturbed, on my desk for 3 months now.

My problem: This evening I picked up my rover and attempted to plug it in. The lights came on but my computer did not recognize the device. I checked my device manager and found no USB connection. I changed the cable, twice. I went and grabbed another microcontroller and it easily connected to the computer. Next, I checked the forum and found the "Loop-Back" test instructions. That was a dud. I tried to double-press the reset button on the board, but nothing happened. The only feedback I am receiving is that the power indicator light is on, solid green.

what could be the issue to my connection troubles?
what can I do to fix it?
what could have caused said issue after the board sat, undisturbed, for nearly three months?

I am reaching out in hopes that my problem can be resolved. My only hope is that I do not need to scrap this lovely board.

Thank you all in advance for the help.

Cheers,
Flip

2

Just got some action here. The board has been plugged in for a while now with nothing happening. The charge indicator LED started blinking with an interval of 1 second.

what could that indicate? there is nothing plugged into the board. It sits alone, next to my mousepad. No lipo battery, no extra connections, no shields, nothing.

3

Flipasaurus:
Next, I checked the forum and found the "Loop-Back" test instructions. That was a dud.

The loop-back test only works on the Arduino boards with an external USB to TTL serial adapter. You can't use it with the native USB boards like the MKR1000.

If you have anything connected to the MKR1000, please disconnect it and then check if that solves the issue. The MKR1000 often comes with its pins stuck into some black foam. This foam is conductive so you can't use the MKR1000 when it's in the foam.

4

I wish it was that simple. I have the board standing alone, no connections to it. The board is standing by the pins at my desk. The conductive foam is long gone, tossed to the wastebasket with the anti-static bag it came in months ago. The foam is probably retired in a landfill somewhere, hanging out with it's buddies.