Anyone else have an issue with a brand new tinyG board that had IC chips blow on you during operation? I had just purchased a brand new board and hooked it up to a voltage regulated 24V supply. The polarity was checked and double checked before hooking it up. The board powered on just fine and it was recognized by the computer. I went through the tinyG wiki and set up the gcode sending software and it recommends that you first run $test=1 without any motors hooked up. I ran the code as my board sat on my desk and 10 seconds in I heard a pop, saw a flash, and it let the magic smoke out. Nothing made contact with the board and it was even on a clean towel to prevent any shorting. I'm blown away that there is no short or current protection on a board that runs you $130+.
TinyG shorted out during gcode test
From the original Synthetos forum (2011–2025)
What device blew?
Use this to describe area of board 
The chance that a recoverable/repairable failure that might be protected by short/current protection is rather low.
I have had the same problem, my board just shorted out when i gave it power, the stepper motor driver dvr8188 blew up. and nothing was connected to it. now the ft230x chip is heating up. I have checked the power section on the board and every thing is normal there.
Sorry for the problem. We will replace the board. Can you please send the failed board back for diagnosis? We will pay shipping. Please contact customer support.
well, Thanx for the offer, but it would take 2-3 weeks to get a new board and i am in the finishing stages of my project. i have diagnosed the board and found that the
Motor driving ic (DRV8818PWP) had blown, also the FTDI IC was heating a lot ( FT230X5). I have replace those IC's and now i am stuck in bootloader mode. i am going to reflash the Atmega today. And let you know the results.
I appreciate the diagnosis. We can still send a new board if you wish. In order to determine the root cause of the failure can I ask a few questions?
- Which axis failed?
- What kind of machine are you running? Screw driven, belt driven?
- What voltage are you running and do you think the power supply or a surge may have anything to do with it.
Again, sorry for your difficulties and thanks for the posts.
Thanx Alden, I tried flashing the Atmega, but was not able to.
Maybe because of a the cheap programmer that i bought.
Now the answer to your questions.
- Z axis failed, But it was not connected to anything.
- I am building a belt driven pick and place machine.
- I am running the machine at 24V D.C. from a 14 amp. Smps( Meanwell), I have check the onboard power supply and i am getting the right voltages on the board. nothing from the pwersuplly section has blown.
- I am using nema 23 for the X axis and nema 17 for the Y, Z, A Axis.
Its kind of weird that the motor driver IC blew, when there was nothing connected to it, Although the X and Y axis were connected at that time, Also, i am not able to understand why the ftdi chip started getting hot ??? These 2 components are not related at all.
Please let me know how can i get the replacement of the board ???
Thanks for the update and the info. Please send shipping info for the replacement board to synthetos at gmail dot com.
All your responses seems reasonable. No idea why Z failed. Odd. Does it look like there are shorts on the board? Perhaps the Vref was maxed out? What was the Z motor green LED doing? Was it lit while this was occurring? I'll take a closer look when I get your board back.
I use the Atmel-ICE programmer for everything now, including real-time debugging with Atmel Studio 6.2 (must be most recent version!). I have half a dozen of them and sometimes the die - so beware. Also, the Micro USB B is really easy to rip off the board, so be careful.
Check to see if your USB ground and power supply ground have a differential on them. That's the only thing I can think of regarding the FTDI getting hot.
Hi alden,
i had sent an email in regards to the replacement of tinyg , but haven't received any reply in this regards. Can you please help me out here.
The thing is alden, I do all my projects in microchip and have programmers etc. for that, and where i live the programmers are not easy to find. I would have to probably import the programmer from uk or the usa.
Alden,
Thanx i have received the replacement board. Please let me know , where to send the old board.
Im glad im not the only one who has this issue...my Tiny G is only a month old and like you had nothing connected to it and heard a pop followed by a funny smell coming from the board. Its so frustrating because i have checked double checked and even triple checked the setup and everything is perfect. I am running a 24V PS which has worked just fine till now. Extremely frustrating! Where do I go from here?
Well i sent you guys a msg. On here and on the contact us part like you asked. I wished i read this forum before purchasing i would have went smoothie.
Still no reply...
Sorry, that interface was down for a couple days.
Retry
Head over here:
and briefly describe the problem
It gets all the info to the right place.
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