CIRCUITPY Volume not visible for an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express on Windows 10 1803
I’ve just returned from the US and whilst there I picked myself up an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express. I plugged it into my computer and by all reports it should just appear as a removable drive on Windows 10. Alas that didn’t happen for me. I could get it into BOOT mode by pressing the Reset switch, but no matter what I did I couldn’t get the expected CIRCUITPY volume to be visible in File Explorer. Here’s how I got it working along with configuring VSCode as the editor.
Open VSCode and install the Arduino Extension (from Microsoft)
go to the Command Palette and open Preferences: Open User Settings
under Arduino: Pathadd the path to Arduino. It should be something like C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\ArduinoLLC.ArduinoIDE_1.8.21.0_x86__mdqgnx93n4wtt depending on the version you have
under Arduino: Additional Urlsselect edit in settings.json and add the following line and save the file
Open the Command Palette and select Arduino Board Config. Select Adafruit Circuit Playground
Verify that the Adafruit Circuit Playground board is showing in the VSCode system tray along with the COM port is using on your computer.
Update the Bootloader
Currently the latest bootloader is available from here https://github.com/adafruit/uf2-samdx1/releases/latest
for Circuit Playground Express you are looking for the update-bootloader-circuitplay_m0-v2.0.0-adafruit.VERSION.uf2 file
Click the reset button (in the middle of the board) and you should see the CPLAYBOOT drive volume in your computer File Explorer
Drop the bootloader uf2 file onto the drive
Update to the latest Circuit Python Release
That is available from here https://circuitpython.org/board/circuitplayground_express/
Currently that is v3.1.2
Drop the updated Circuit Python .u2f file onto the CPLAYBOOT volume
Restore the Demo Python Script
The demo is available from here https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Learning_System_Guides/raw/master/Introducing_CircuitPlaygroundExpress/CPXDemoContent.zip
Unzip the download and drop the demo script (main.py and *.wav files) onto the CIRCUITPY volume
It will restart and go through the neopixel demo (with startup sound)
Using VSCode open the main.py file from the CIRCUITPY volume
update the following line from False to True and save the file
TOUCH_PIANO =True
With that all done I was up and running.
Hopefully that helps someone else get quickly starting and avoid all the troubleshooting I went through to get up and running.
Darren Robinson
Bespoke learnings from a Microsoft Identity and Access Management Architect using lots of Microsoft Identity Manager, Azure Active Directory, PowerShell, SailPoint IdentityNow and Lithnet products and services.