Possible faulty PiBorg Reverse

Submitted by piborg@clarke-w... on Sun, 10/30/2016 - 11:50

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Hi, I have a brand new PiBorg Reverse and have attached 12V to the motor power input terminal but the power output to both motors is constantly 10.58V no matter what I do. Even if i remove the 'all stop' jumper it still stays the same. I don't know if it means anything but I have never seen the led light up even on initial power up of the RaspberryPi.
The device is visible on the I2C bus and communicates well. For example, I can Set the power output level (using C library commands) on either motor and (although the actual power output doesn't change) when I Get the motor level the value I just Set is correctly sent back to me. So the device is definitely connected properly. Not sure what else I can try. I'm suspecting it's faulty.
Please help,
Ricky

piborg's picture

piborg

Mon, 10/31/2016 - 10:57

It does sound like the driver chips are likely to be faulty or damaged.

The only other explanation I can give is the V+ and GND are connected back to front.
Can you double-check the 12V battery / supply is connected the correct way around (shown below)?

Images: 

piborg@clarke-w...

Tue, 11/01/2016 - 10:31

Thanks for the quick response.
No joy I'm afraid though. Shall I return it for you to look at?

piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/01/2016 - 10:54

Yes, I think the best thing to do is get you to return the board for investigation and repair.

The address to return the board to is:

Freeburn Robotics Limited
Unit 15, Earith Business Park
Meadow Drove
Earith
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE28 3QF
United Kingdom

If you could include a note with:

  1. You order number if you know it
  2. A quick description of the fault
  3. The address to send the repaired / replaced board to
piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 11:05

I have done some testing on the board you returned, the results were a bit unexpected.

As you say the LED does not appear to work at all, even when manually commanded.
On the other hand the motor outputs seemed to work fine.

I have taken some shots, they are a little blurry as I took them one-handed :)
These were using the GUI example to control the motors using sliders.

The voltages are a bit low because the motors are taking power.
The voltages do read the correct values with no motors attached.

Images: 
piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 11:06

These are the rest of the images.

Images: 

piborg@clarke-w...

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 12:31

This is strange. Possibly an intermittent fault?
Given that the LED isn't functioning as expected on that particular board I still think I would prefer to have a new board than try and use that one again.
What are my options though?

piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 14:38

We would like to have a go at repairing the board since it is probably just a single component that need fixing.

On closer inspection it looks like the LED has been fitted backwards, this was probably the cause of all the other issues as it will have put a unnecessary drain on the 3.3 V rail.

piborg@clarke-w...

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 14:50

Ok. I'm happy for you to try and fix this.
Could this have caused damaged to my RaspberryPi though?

piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 15:04

I doubt it could have damaged the Raspberry Pi, the most likely effect would have been preventing the Raspberry Pi from starting up correctly.

piborg@clarke-w...

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 16:28

That's good news. Do you have an idea how long I might have to wait until I get it back?

piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/08/2016 - 19:40

We are intending to repair the board sometime in the next couple of days.

piborg's picture

piborg

Wed, 11/09/2016 - 13:42

We have just finished re-testing your board, the repair has been successful :)

We will send the board back to you in our next mail drop, probably tomorrow morning.

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