Hermit Crab 2 Intermittent Canbus Issues

[Christian W.]

Hey folks,

I just spent 10 hours debugging an intermittent CAN bus communication issue between an E3EZ and a Hermit Crab 2 CAN bus.

The device was working fine out of the box, but after about an hour of experimenting, it started acting up.

I couldn't flash firmware, the RP2040 was stuck in boot mode, and then it suddenly worked for a minute just to die again after a minute or two.

Long story short: when I press down on the RP2040 chip with my finger, the device works. As soon as I lift my finger, it instantly dies.

I haven't found this issue mentioned in any forums or troubleshooting guides. I should have thought of this sooner, but here we are.

So, if you've spent hours debugging the crap out of your Crab because of intermittent issues, try gently pressing on the chip—it seems to like that.

[Christian W.]

In case someone cares, i contacted support 12h ago and after a couple of mails i got this response:

"Hello sir, I will reissue this substrate to you, but it will take some time, please be patient."

I guess now its waiting time.