Missing PicoBorg Reverse at 44

Submitted by adam.greenaway@... on Fri, 04/15/2016 - 02:14

Forums:

After several months of working perfectly I am now seeing the following error message at startup:

sudo ~/diddyborg-web/diddyAdamWeb.py
Loading PicoBorg Reverse on bus 1, address 44
Missing PicoBorg Reverse at 44
PicoBorg Reverse was not found
Trying bus 0 instead
Loading PicoBorg Reverse on bus 0, address 44
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/pi/diddyborg-web/diddyAdamWeb.py", line 39, in
PBR.Init()
File "/home/pi/diddyborg-web/PicoBorgRev.py", line 264, in Init
self.Init(False)
File "/home/pi/diddyborg-web/PicoBorgRev.py", line 234, in Init
self.bus = smbus.SMBus(self.busNumber)
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

The light on the reverse board under the DiddyBorg is flashing repeatedly quickly and dimly. I don't know if this is correct behavior. No other lights are lit on the board. The Raspberry Pi appears healthy. As a precaution I swapped out the Raspberry Pi (same SD card) and got the same error ... although I am not sure if this was a valid test. The original Raspberry Pi is now back in place. Same error. I have tried a few other suggestions from this forum without success.

Any suggestions, help, advice would be much appreciated ...

Thanks
Adam

piborg's picture

piborg

Fri, 04/15/2016 - 11:10

The LED on the PicoBorg Reverse should flash once strongly when power is first connected.
After that the DiddyBorg scripts should blink the LED while waiting for a joystick to be connected or when the script has finished.

In all of the above cases the LED should not be showing dimly.
My best guess here is that the PicoBorg Reverse is struggling to get enough power from the 3v3 wire for some reason.
When the logic detects the power is too low it restarts to be safe, constant restarting would cause the LED to flash quickly.

It is hard to be sure what the exact problem is, but there are a few culprits you can check:

  1. Check your batteries are fully charged.
    This might be pointing to a battery which does not have enough power left to run everything correctly
  2. The 3-pin wires might be making a poor connection.
    If you have any spares try replacing the wires, swapping them over may also help
  3. The BattBorg might be faulty.
    Try disconnecting the BattBorg from the PicoBorg Reverse and using a USB micro charger with the Raspberry Pi instead.
    If the PicoBorg Reverse can now be talked to then the BattBorg or the batteries are to blame.
  4. Check for shorts.
    It is unlikely but possible that something is draining the 3.3 V or 5 V pins of power that should not be.
    See if you can spot any rouge bits of metal or wire connecting between pins on any of the boards.
  5. The PicoBorg Reverse has developed a fault.
    This is a bit more tricky to confirm:
    1. Remove all of the board from the DiddyBorg and disconnect all of them from everything.
    2. Get two wires and connect only pin 1 and pin 6 between the Raspberry Pi and the PicoBorg Reverse.
    3. Finally connect a power supply to the USB micro connection on the Raspberry Pi.

    If the LED blinks strongly once and then remains off the PicoBorg Reverse is not causing the problem.
    Any other LED behaviour from the PicoBorg Reverse suggests the PicoBorg Reverse is not working correctly.

adam.greenaway@...

Sat, 04/16/2016 - 03:05

It was a bad cable, that was all. I tried again and it was an easy fix in the end. Obviously when I tried it first time around I did something wrong. Thanks for the helpful reply. You have a great product and a great company. Now I am waiting for some of those Ultrasonic sensors I ordered a few days ago... :-)

Thanks again.

Subscribe to Comments for "Missing PicoBorg Reverse at 44"