Getting Started with the Artemis Development Kit

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Troubleshooting

Below, we have also included some additional troubleshooting tips for issues that you may come across with the Artemis Development Kit.

1. One of our employees compiled a great list of troubleshooting tips based on the most common customer issues. This is the perfect place to start.
2. For any Arduino IDE specific issues, we recommend starting with their troubleshooting guide.

If neither of the troubleshooting guides above were able to help, here are some tips you might have missed. (Most of this material is summarized from the tutorial.):

Are You Using a Recommended Computer OS?

This board is not compatible with the Arduino Web IDE. We do NOT recommend using a Chromebook, Netbook, tablet, phone, or the Arduino Web IDE in general. If you are here, try a RECOMMENDED operating system (refer to the notice in the Introduction).

My Board Isn't Working:

Every Artemis DK gets tested before getting packaged up. That being said, let's try a basic test to see if just the board is working. Disconnect everything that you have attached to the board; we just want to test the board.

1. Inspect the board:
   Check the board to make sure everything looks about right. Use the pictures on the product page to verify component placement or alignment, and bad solder joints, or damage.
2. Power and check the status LEDs:
   Using a known good USB-C cable, plug your board in to the computer. Do any of the status LEDs turn on (see Hardware Overview)?
   • New boards, out of the bag, will come programmed with a test sketch that blinks that status LED at a rate of approximately 2 blinks per second.
3. Test a Blink sketch:
   Try to program the blink sketch. Why blink? It is simple, known to work (from the example files), and you have an indicator LED.
   • Double check that you have the proper Board selected prior to exporting the compiled binary.
   • For boards that are already running the blink example, I recommend changing the timing parameters to check for a change in the board's response.
   Verify that you see the status LED blinking properly. If you are having trouble compiling or exporting the binary file, try using this pre-compiled binary file.

I Don't See My Board on a Serial/COM Port:

If you don't see your board as an available COM port on the Arduino IDE:

• Try to re-open the Arduino IDE.
• Check the Device Manager to verify that your computer recognizes the board.
• The issue might be related to your USB cable. Check that you are using a USB cable capable of data transfers. Some cables only have the power pins connected for charging. A good way to test this is to plug in a device to your USB cable (like a phone). If it doesn't show up as a device or drive, then try a new USB-C cable.
• This rarely happens, but it is easy to check. If you are using a USB 3.0 port (you will see a blue "tongue" in the USB jack or bad USB port, try a different USB port. You can also try to test the board on a different computer to double check for a hardware incompatibility (usually with expansion boards).

Additional Tips:

• If an input pin is read and that is floating (with nothing connected to it), you may see random data/states. In practice, it is useful to tie an input pin to a known state with a pull-up resistor (to VCC), or a pull-down resistor (to GND).
• The maximum current an I/O pin can source (provide positive current) or sink (provide negative current) is 50 mA (milliamps). You can power small sections of LED strips or small motors, but will run into issue with high power devices.
• The pins on the Artemis DK use 3.3V logic and aren't directly compatible with 5V devices.

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