Before you buy all the parts for your Palm Pad - run this test first!

If you’re thinking about building a Palm Pad and want to make sure that it will work, this post is for you.

What is the Fail Fast Test

The Fail Fast Test is a bare bones version of the Teensy Program and Web Configuration Tool that are used with the Palm Pad. The idea is that if you can’t upload the sketch to your teensy and connect to it from the web configuration tool - you will have failed.

If you fail then you’ve failed fast! and you shouldn’t really proceed with the Palm Pad project. You’re only out the cost of the Teensy, which you should be able to use in lots of other projects. Just search online for some!

About The Test

Here is a high-level summary of the test:

1. Download the Fail Fast Teensy Sketch
2. Upload the sketch to your Teensy
3. Run the Fail Fast Web Connect page
4. Connect to your Teensy that is running the Fail Fast sketch

If everything works - then you have not failed!

You can proceed with building the Palm Pad knowing that you shouldn’t run into issues uploading the real sketch and connecting using the real web configuration tool.

I am going to provide info on the tools I’m using to upload to the teensy - you don’t need to follow exactly how I’m doing this - there are different ways to do it - and different tools based on your preference and operating system. All you need to be able to do is upload to the teensy - that’s the goal.

Run the Test

Step 1 - Upload the Teensy Sketch

1. Download and Install the correct Arduino IDE version 1.8.19 for your Operating System.

2. Download and install the Teensy Teensyduino Library for Arduino.

3. Download the Fail Fast Teensy Skecth from Github.

4. Open Arduino and load the Fail Fast Sketch, which is called teensy_fail_fast.ino

5. Connect your Teensy to your computer with a DATA USB cable. Make sure the cable isn’t a charge only cable.

6. In the Tools Menu, make sure to set the USB Type to Serial + Keyboard + Mouse + Joystick

7. In the Tools Menu, make sure to select the correct PORT for your teensy. If your Teensy is not showing up, try these troubleshooting steps

8. Click on the Upload button in Arduino.

9. There are many times where you might need to press the button on your teensy to complete the upload. Look for any messages in the console of the Arduino IDE. If you see a message that you need to press the PROGRAM MODE BUTTON - do so.

10. If everything goes according to plan - you will see a message above the console that says Done uploading. The Fail Fast program is now on your Teensy. You can verify this by opening the Serial Monitor.

11. Open the Serial Monitor from the Tools Menu or with the little icon in the upper right of the Arduino Window. This will open up a new window. In the new window you should see messages printing every second like {"t":"tick","ms":XXXX}. This means it’s working. You will see these messages showing up in the web configuration fail fast test page in the next step.

Step 2 - The Web Connect Tester

There are 2 ways to open up the web connect tester.

• You can download the html file from Github, or
• Access the tool directly using the online version here on this site.

The choice is yours. There are some that say you could get errors when running the html locally, but I’ve had no issues. If you try locally and it’s not working, then try the online version. Or just use the online version.

Ok, that said… let’s keep going.

1. Open up the Fail Fast Web Connect test html page

2. There are instructions on the page, but if your teensy is flashed properly from the last set of steps, you should be able to click on the yellow Connect button.

3. A dialog box should appear. you should see a device called FAILFAST in the list. Select that device, and click on the “Connect” button.

4. If it connects successfully - then you should see the connection status message on the page change and you should see the Device Timestamp update every second. This is coming from those message you saw in the serial monitor.

5. If you’ve successfully connected - You have PASSED the test!!! If you weren’t able to connect, the try to unplug and plug the Teensy in again, and refresh the web page. It might take a few times, but it should connect.

6. If you aren’t able to connect to your Teensy, after googling around, asking chatGPT, or praying to the computer gods - then sadly, you have failed. But don’t give up - it should work, keep trying - but don’t go out and buy any more parts for the Palm Pad until you can get this test to work.