Hi all,
I recently bought a new Sense HAT v2 and connected it to both a Raspberry Pi 5 and later a Raspberry Pi 3B for testing.
![🔍]()
Initial problem
Out of the box, the LED matrix showed a full vertical column lighting up when attempting to light a single pixel via:
This happened consistently on both the Pi 5 and Pi 3B. The onboard sensors (humidity, temp, etc.) worked fine, and the Sense HAT was detected at i2c-1 address 0x46.
![🔧]()
Troubleshooting steps I tried:
Verified I²C and SPI interfaces were enabled via raspi-config
Tried both the framebuffer API and raw I²C access
Ensured dtoverlay=rpi-sense was in /boot/firmware/config.txt
Tested with sense-hat library installed via apt
Used a custom fb0 write script to light up a single pixel
Confirmed the same issue happened on another clean Raspberry Pi OS Lite install on a different raspberry pi 3b
Finally, I attempted to reflash the ATtiny firmware via the rpi-sense repo (make flash with avrdude) — which succeeded, but…
![🚨]()
Now the LED matrix is completely unresponsive
After flashing, the sense_hat library still detects the HAT (sensors work), but the LED matrix no longer shows anything at all — not even the previously misbehaving column.
I now suspect I flashed the v1 firmware (rpi-sense) onto a v2 board, which may be using a different internal protocol or microcontroller layout (and does not use /dev/fb0).
![🙏]()
Request:
Could someone from the RPi Foundation (or the community) please provide the correct .hex firmware for Sense HAT v2 so I can reflash and restore its original behavior?
I’m happy to use avrdude or make flash again — I just need the proper firmware.
Thank you in advance!
I recently bought a new Sense HAT v2 and connected it to both a Raspberry Pi 5 and later a Raspberry Pi 3B for testing.
Initial problemOut of the box, the LED matrix showed a full vertical column lighting up when attempting to light a single pixel via:
Code:
from sense_hat import SenseHatsense = SenseHat()sense.clear()sense.set_pixel(2, 3, 255, 0, 0)
Troubleshooting steps I tried:Verified I²C and SPI interfaces were enabled via raspi-config
Tried both the framebuffer API and raw I²C access
Ensured dtoverlay=rpi-sense was in /boot/firmware/config.txt
Tested with sense-hat library installed via apt
Used a custom fb0 write script to light up a single pixel
Confirmed the same issue happened on another clean Raspberry Pi OS Lite install on a different raspberry pi 3b
Finally, I attempted to reflash the ATtiny firmware via the rpi-sense repo (make flash with avrdude) — which succeeded, but…
Now the LED matrix is completely unresponsiveAfter flashing, the sense_hat library still detects the HAT (sensors work), but the LED matrix no longer shows anything at all — not even the previously misbehaving column.
I now suspect I flashed the v1 firmware (rpi-sense) onto a v2 board, which may be using a different internal protocol or microcontroller layout (and does not use /dev/fb0).
Request:Could someone from the RPi Foundation (or the community) please provide the correct .hex firmware for Sense HAT v2 so I can reflash and restore its original behavior?
I’m happy to use avrdude or make flash again — I just need the proper firmware.
Thank you in advance!
Statistics: Posted by julius232 — Sat Apr 19, 2025 9:01 am — Replies 0 — Views 34