TTGO T-Beam failed to connect to USB on MAC 10.13.6

Support
1

Hello everybody - I’m happy to join this exciting thing called Meshtastic.

SInce I’m not as confident in programming / electronics I hope, that I´m not asking the same question the 1000th time. I did Google extensively and tried to find a solution in this forum. But unfortunately, I´m not getting further.

The situation:
Computer: MacBook Air 2014 10.13.6
USB Driver: CP2104 from Silicon Labs (it shows active)

I got a TTGO T-Beam LILLYGO T22_V1.1 291212 from Aliexpress. It seems to be working but else as stated, it doesn’t have the meshtastic firmware on it. It shows SoftRF when started.

Now I tried to flash it with meshtastic but my Mac doesn’t recognize it.

Things I’ve tried so far:

  • Switching several USB cables
  • Holding the reset button before connecting to USB

When trying to connect it via Terminal I receive this message:

XXXXXX:~ XX$ esptool.py chip_id

esptool.py v3.0

Found 1 serial ports

Serial port /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port

Connecting…………………_____

/dev/cu.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port failed to connect: Failed to connect to Espressif device: Timed out waiting for packet header

A fatal error occurred: Could not connect to an Espressif device on any of the 1 available serial ports.

I would be very happy to get any idea what I could do to get this working.
Thank you for reading

Marcel

terminal epstool

1 Like
2

You’ll want the drives from:

Once you have that installed, your port will be:

/dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART

1 Like
3

Thank you, that was fast!

I already installed it - it seems to be working, too.
but the port does not show as /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART

USB CP2104
USB CP2104751×520 54 KB

4

Hello everybody,

maybe my last reply was not specific enough. I mentioned that as the driver seems to be working, I still can’t connect to the T-Beam.

If there’s anything I can try, I would be very happy for your help.
Thank you.

5

Yes, try a different USB cable. Some cables are charge only and are not setup for data transfer.

6

Thank you - I tried every single one, I own. But maybe I can look up to purchase one, that is special marked as for data transfer?

7

Well if you tried multiple, then I do nkt know. I cant see everyone of them being a charge only.

Do you have a Raspberry Pi laying around by any chance?

8

Unfortunately not, yet. I was thinking about getting one, to set up a BTC node, but that’s in another page :slight_smile:

Would it be a chance to solve this problem?
If so. I´d manage to put my hands on one right now…

I do have a handful of Arduino around here + working IDE.

Thank you

9

I was thinking it would be a quick way to see if Linux was able to communicate with your TBeam. Rule out a driver or OS issue.

Of course you could always make a bootable Ubuntu USB and boot Ubuntu without installing it and see if that works.

10

hmm… ok. I´m unfamiliar with Linux / Ubuntu. When you say “easy” - please note, that I’m not that confident with behind UI work :smiley:

But I’m open to new challenges.
Did I get it right so far:

  • raspberry PI
  • bootable USB Stick with UBUNTU
  • boot that raspberry with UBUNTU
  • connect T-Beam to raspberry

What would I have to do then? Never used a raspberry before…

Thank you

11

Use the GUI for meshtastic it works on Windows Linux and OSX and only requires you install
python
Meshtastic
PySimpleGUI

You can message me if you need more help

12

Also the USB cable you use matters alot, a quality cable goes a long way with cheaper ones causing flash issues. The serial and basic nature of the interface makes it so that a USB cable can and does make all the difference for being able to flash correctly.

13

thank you - I´ll have a look into that!

14

ZebusJesus/Meshtastic-PyGUI: Python Based GUI that uses the Meshtastic API (github.com)

You can use the test pip or you can simple run the main script itself

15

I have read that so often now, many others have tried a dozen time to flash it and then the with ANOTHER cable it worked :smiley:

16

this would be the way to do it with a raspberry, right?

If yes, then I´d get my hands on one the next days and I might get back to you for some further help if that’s fine for you?

17

Yes its one of the reasons I made the GUI, I want a touch screen I/O for setting up the radios in the field. Python will come installed by default with Raspbian you will just need to:

python -m pip install --upgrade meshtastic

python -m pip install PySimpleGUI

python -m pip install -i Simple index meshtastic-gui

If you get an error about Meshtastic Not found then you will need to add then newly added python modules to your PATH which is most likely

~/.local/bin

this may not be the location but I believe it its the location that python installs modules in Raspbian

Whith everything set up you can launch the GUI with

python -m meshtastic_pygui
or
meshtastic_pygui

18

No :slight_smile: ,
either use a rasPi and flash its SD card with a supported linux, preferably raspBian,

or flash linux on a usb stick (e.g. with rufus software), plug it into your laptop and then boot from the usb stick. Your actual OS will not be touched by this procedure.

edit: use a virtual machine instead and install linux there. it is always handy to have a linux vm at hand :wink:

19

ok, now that’s the missing link for me to buy one :smiley:

I will order one the coming days and as soon I got my hands on it, I will report!
Until then I keep studying this fantastic forum - this is awesome!
I should consider again, getting a HAM license, it seems there are quite a few great ideas waiting.

thank you very much!

1 Like
20

ok, I see… :slight_smile:

well this might be an interesting alternative, too!
maybe I´ll try it with my wife’s one first :smiley:

VM scares me a bit… bootable stick sounds better to me

thank you very much

1 Like