Imp001 Died After 4 Years

Hardware
1

I have two IMP001 cards installed in separate April boards for 2 separate projects. The older one died just yesterday after running flawlessly as a garage door controller since 2014. How long are these expected to last?

The garage door Imp was in an April board powered by a USB charger.
It was mounted to the ceiling in the garage where it is safe and dry.
I plugged my other imp001 into the garage door April board to verify that the board is ok.
I plugged the garage door imp into the other April board and verified that nothing lights up.

Am I correct in assuming that the garage door Imp is dead?

2

If nothing lights up then yes quite possibly. The lifetime should be 10+ years in general - silicon, especially smaller feature sizes like the 65nm radio - has limited time under bias before it will fail. However, the CPU is less stressed and that’s what makes the lights flash.

A transient on an I/O line can definitely fry the CPU though. Possible? What’s connected?

I have several 6+ year old 001’s that have been powered continuously that are still working happily. If you’d like a replacement, PM me :slight_smile: