Home row stopped working on left side Corne/poor battery life
Good afternoon,
I built a wireless choc Corne a few months ago, with a premium case, solderless headers, and nice!views, and have been greatly enjoying it, with one minor complaint--the battery life on the left half has been somewhat poor. I could usually get around 2-3 days of heavy use out of it before needing to charge. So, less than the ZMK power profiler states, but also long enough to manage.
Unfortunately, after finishing a recent charge, I attempted to use the keyboard again and noticed that the home row on the left side no longer works. I disassembled the board to ensure that all of the header pins were still seated/flush with the PCB, and they were. Upon reassembly, the row still did not work. I understand from the diagram on this troubleshooting page that the corresponding pin is P0.24. There does not appear to be anything visibly wrong with the pin, as far as I can tell , and I do not have a multimeter to test it. There are also no visible shorts on the diodes/back of the PCB, as far as I can tell.
When trying to diagnose the earlier battery issue, I had thought that maybe there was a short somewhere on the PCB, based on the last bullet here https://docs.typeractive.xyz/build-guides/lily58-wireless/batteries under "Important Battery Information"). The other bullets were inapplicable, as I kept it connected to one device and turned it off when not in use.
Based on the above information, review of support threads in this server, and further searches online, I have come up with three theories:
1. A short somewhere on the board, which caused the initial battery drain and may have been exacerbated with the recent charge/jostled during travel (I recently returned from a trip, and the keyboard was padded, in my bag, and within a microfiber carrying bag). I understand that a faulty diode can cause the whole row to fail.
2. I somehow fried the board/battery/nice!nano during charging. Several times, I have resorted to charging the keyboard using my laptop charging cable, which runs up to 100W. I know that some batteries/electronic devices can be compromised if they are plugged into a power source that is too high. Is this a potential risk? Could too high of wattage have fried the microcontroller?
3. An ESD issue--I have seen several support threads in this server citing electrostatic discharge as having fried nice!nanos, and even created the same issue (one or more rows not working). Is this the most likely cause? If so, is my only recourse to buy another nice!nano? If so, what would be the best way to prevent this from happening again? Are the soldered headers less prone to this sort of issue?
What would be the best way to proceed? The way I see it, I have the option of replacing 1) the nice!nano, 2) the left half of the PCB, or 3) both of these things, and potentially 4) the battery (unlikely to address the broken row but may remedy the fast battery drain).
Thank you for your time; I would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.
I built a wireless choc Corne a few months ago, with a premium case, solderless headers, and nice!views, and have been greatly enjoying it, with one minor complaint--the battery life on the left half has been somewhat poor. I could usually get around 2-3 days of heavy use out of it before needing to charge. So, less than the ZMK power profiler states, but also long enough to manage.
Unfortunately, after finishing a recent charge, I attempted to use the keyboard again and noticed that the home row on the left side no longer works. I disassembled the board to ensure that all of the header pins were still seated/flush with the PCB, and they were. Upon reassembly, the row still did not work. I understand from the diagram on this troubleshooting page that the corresponding pin is P0.24. There does not appear to be anything visibly wrong with the pin, as far as I can tell , and I do not have a multimeter to test it. There are also no visible shorts on the diodes/back of the PCB, as far as I can tell.
When trying to diagnose the earlier battery issue, I had thought that maybe there was a short somewhere on the PCB, based on the last bullet here https://docs.typeractive.xyz/build-guides/lily58-wireless/batteries under "Important Battery Information"). The other bullets were inapplicable, as I kept it connected to one device and turned it off when not in use.
Based on the above information, review of support threads in this server, and further searches online, I have come up with three theories:
1. A short somewhere on the board, which caused the initial battery drain and may have been exacerbated with the recent charge/jostled during travel (I recently returned from a trip, and the keyboard was padded, in my bag, and within a microfiber carrying bag). I understand that a faulty diode can cause the whole row to fail.
2. I somehow fried the board/battery/nice!nano during charging. Several times, I have resorted to charging the keyboard using my laptop charging cable, which runs up to 100W. I know that some batteries/electronic devices can be compromised if they are plugged into a power source that is too high. Is this a potential risk? Could too high of wattage have fried the microcontroller?
3. An ESD issue--I have seen several support threads in this server citing electrostatic discharge as having fried nice!nanos, and even created the same issue (one or more rows not working). Is this the most likely cause? If so, is my only recourse to buy another nice!nano? If so, what would be the best way to prevent this from happening again? Are the soldered headers less prone to this sort of issue?
What would be the best way to proceed? The way I see it, I have the option of replacing 1) the nice!nano, 2) the left half of the PCB, or 3) both of these things, and potentially 4) the battery (unlikely to address the broken row but may remedy the fast battery drain).
Thank you for your time; I would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.
Installing the batteries is a simple but particular step. This guide will go over the positioning and installation of them.
