i plugged the psu into the robot controller board, turned it on and it was normal with 2 red leds and 1 green blinking led. finished the construction plugged it in with micro b to a desktop pc heard an audible snap sound and it only displays the power led now and no idea how to debug it. any help is appreciated
I would try turning on the XRP without it being plugged into the computer and see if the 2 red LEDs come on and the green one flashes.
Another thing to double check is that the USB cable that you are using is a data cable and not just a power cable.
i tried disconnecting the usb cable then turning it on but its still only the power led and the raspi doesnt have the blinking green light either. i tried different usb cables in different usb ports and still nothing
Hi there! Sorry to hear this has happened to you, that’s definitely not right!
Did your computer give your an error messages when you connect the control board over USB? I know that Windows will sometimes pop up a notification if a USB device malfunctions, though not always.
Are you able to identify exactly where the snap sound came from? I’d like to diagnose if a component failed. Could you please send a high quality picture of your control board?
There are 2 red power LEDs on the control board, right next to each other. One is labeled “SYS”, the other is labeled “MOT”. If you power the board from the batteries and turn the switch on, do both red LEDs illuminate, or just 1? If just 1, which one?
Another thing to try is unplugging everything from the control board except for the batteries. Does that makes a difference?
If the control board has definitely failed, I’d suggest you head to SparkFun’s s support page for further assistance, and link to this thread so they can catch up on the conversation.
Please let us know how it goes, thank you!
when i connect the board to my pc it doesnt detect it at all. ive tried multiple cables i have. about the 2 red leds on the control board, only the mot led turns on. the sys led doesnt. i unplugged every other cable except the battery pack and that didnt help either. as for a picture of the board, here it is:
Dang! I was hoping that unplugging everything would show some different behavior. Just for reference, I think it’s possible that if the power wires of the ultrasonic sensor are flipped, that could lead to the behavior you’re seeing. Probably worth double checking that too just in case, but the root problem may be something else.
Thank you for testing my suggestions, and for sending the picture! (Nice background btw!) Nothing seems obviously wrong (eg. blown components), so sounds like the board really is dead. At this point, I’d suggest you contact SparkFun support directly; I suspect you’ll be able to RMA the board and get a replacement.
I’m having a similar problem. I’m using the SparkFun 4-in-1 Multi-USB Cable - USB-C Host to connect from PC to XRP.
All is good, one red pwr LED, blinking green LED on RiPi. Loaded installation_verification, ran it, and shortly after turning on battery power, got two red pwr LEDs and then the green flashing LED stopped.
The program runs while teathered, user button cycles through each step, everything works as expected, but no flashing green LED.
Loading the drive_examples program does not run, tethered nor untethered.
Any ideas?
Sorry for the delay in responding many of us were at the FIRST World Championship in Houston.
The program drive_examples is a set of functions that can be called to show off different ways that the drivetrain can be used. By default none of the functions are called. You can write a quick Python program in import drive_examples and call the different functions.
Hi there!
The green LED will only flash if the code you’re running makes it flash. The Control Boards ship with a demo program that blinks the LED just so you can verify that it’s working out of the box. When you ran drive_exampels.py, that code does not do anything with the LED, so it will not blink any more. Everything you’ve described is what I would expect to see, so seems to me that things are working correctly. If you want the LED to blink, you’ll need to add that to your code.
Hope this helps!