New zeroborg not outputting 5v

Hi there.
This is my second zeroborg install that doesn't seem to want to work. When connecting the 9v battery up, the red led does not light up and the connected pi does not power on. I have tested 9v is making its way into the board, but only 1.5v is at the pi power supply. Is this board a dud?

piborg's picture

That is very strange behaviour. It is possible that the board is faulty, but we need to know more to confirm this.

If you could answer some questions to help us diagnose the problem further:

  1. Which model of Raspberry Pi are you using?
  2. Which model of ZeroBorg are you using: basic or complete?
  3. How is the ZeroBorg connected to the Raspberry Pi?
  4. Is anything else connected to the Raspberry Pi or ZeroBorg besides the battery?
  5. If possible, photos of the ZeroBorg and how it is connected would be helpful

It's a basic zeroborg connected to a pizero by some jumpers. Nothing else is connected at the moment as I'm setting it up. If I power the pi from the usb, I can see the zeroborg on the i2c using i2cdetect.

Images: 
piborg's picture

The good news is that there is nothing wrong with the board :)

The problem is that the ZeroBorg Basic does not provide 5V power for the Raspberry Pi - this is why it is only working when the Pi itself is powered.

The ZeroBorg Complete has a some extra components, one of which is the 5V regulator used to power the Raspberry Pi directly from the ZeroBorg. This is circled in the image below.

It is the same regulator as used in our BattBorg kit.

Images: 

Of course! That's why my other board works, it's a complete board. Can I get the regulator as an add-on?

I've popped the regulator off my other board, it won't fit inside my project with the pp3 battery connector, and it works. On to programming this little guy.

Images: 
piborg's picture

Glad to hear that you found a way to carry on with your project :)

I hope the programming goes well.

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