Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test

Part 8: First Power On and Full Bench Test

Part 2 Flashing and Smoke Testing the Bare Board proved each board works on its own, before any tactors were attached. This page proves the assembled glove works — both boards, all ten tactors between the pair, and the wireless link between them, all at once.

Because Part 7 Enclosure and Mounting doesn't exist yet, this test happens with the boards sitting loose next to the gloves, not mounted on them. Everything below still applies to the electronics; only the enclosure step is missing.

Before you start

You need both gloves from Part 6 Wiring the Glove Harness, each with all five tactors wired and dressed, a battery connected to each board, both roles assigned (one PRIMARY, one SECONDARY, per Part 2 Flashing and Smoke Testing the Bare Board), and BuzzahBuddy paired to both.

Per-finger motor test

Test every channel on both boards individually before testing them together. This is the step that catches a harness transposed during Part 6 Wiring the Glove Harness — a tactor plugged into the wrong silk port will pass its Calibration check on its own board but buzz the wrong finger when you actually wear the glove.

Open BuzzahBuddy's Calibration screen. With both gloves connected, it shows ten buttons — five for the PRIMARY glove and five for the SECONDARY, each labelled by finger name. Tap each of the five buttons for a glove in turn:

• Index
• Middle
• Ring
• Pinky
• Thumb

For each tap, confirm the buzz lands on the intended finger. If a buzz lands on the wrong finger, stop — don't move on to the next button. Re-check the harness against the canonical table in Part 6 Wiring the Glove Harness and correct the connector before continuing. Repeat the full sequence for the other glove's five buttons.

LED status reference

The status LED reports device and battery state at a glance. Use this table for both boards during bench test and afterward:

LED state	Meaning
Breathing blue	Idle / normal operation
Purple, flashing	Peer glove not found
Orange, slow blink	Battery low, below 3.4V
Rapid red flash	Battery critical, below 3.3V — charge immediately

Battery behavior and first charge

The board charges the connected LiPo through the XIAO ESP32-S3's onboard charger whenever it is connected over USB-C — there is no separate charge IC in the v3 BOM.

Connect each board to USB-C with the battery attached and let it run through a first charge cycle before relying on it for bench testing. Watch the LED for the battery states in the table above during and after — if you see orange or red before the battery should reasonably be low, stop and re-check the battery connection before continuing.

Motors require a battery connected — they will not run on USB power alone, since the DRV2605 haptic drivers are powered from VBat rather than USB.

Bilateral pairing

Power both gloves at the same time. This is the first point in the build where you can observe bilateral sync working:

• On power-up, each board shows breathing/blinking blue while it searches for its peer.
• If a board can't find its peer, it flashes purple.
• Once both boards find each other, the purple flashing on both stops and each returns to breathing blue.

Confirm both gloves settle to breathing blue together. If one gets stuck flashing purple, power-cycle both boards and confirm you're not testing them out of range of each other.

What "done" looks like

Both boards pass:

• All ten Calibration buttons (five per glove) land on the correct finger.
• Neither board reports orange or red battery state at a fresh charge.
• Both boards settle to breathing blue when powered together.

That's a fully verified pair of glove electronics, ready for Part 9 Using the Gloves once an enclosure exists to mount them.

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