Not working on breadboard

Submitted by marvelousmarvin on Fri, 04/17/2015 - 22:47

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Hello! There seems to be a problem with the picoborg when I use it on a breadboard. I connects my 8 AA power to the + rail and the ground on the - rail. I connected the power wire to the + rail and the ground wire to the - rail on the picoborg Then I used a solenoid motor for driver 1 and connected those pins on the same section. Thank you.

marvelousmarvin

Fri, 04/17/2015 - 23:05

Whenever I run ~/picoborg/4dc.py it says Drives to Toggle.

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piborg

Sat, 04/18/2015 - 13:33

I am having a bit of trouble understanding what you are trying to say here.
What is the actual problem you are having with the PicoBorg?

It might help if you could upload a photo or draw a diagram of how things are connected.

The script is asking you which outputs you wish to change the state of.
Simply type the number of each output you wish to change, then press enter.

For example:
Drives to toggle (Q to quit)?
1ENTER
Should turn drive 1 on when it is off, or off when it is on.

marvelousmarvin

Sat, 04/18/2015 - 21:55

I toggled drive one and it does not work. I am using a 6v dc motor, 1.8 a stall, raspberry pi 2, and 4 aa batteries. Here are the circuit pics:

Images: 
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piborg

Sun, 04/19/2015 - 00:16

We had problems with RPi.GPIO not working correctly with the Raspberry Pi v2.
The PicoBorg example scripts use RPi.GPIO to control the GPIO pins.

We found that installing the development version of RPi.GPIO fixed the problem.

Try following the development version install instructions at the link below:
http://sourceforge.net/p/raspberry-gpio-python/wiki/install/

marvelousmarvin

Sun, 04/19/2015 - 14:07

Hi,
It still does not work. Thank you.

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piborg

Sun, 04/19/2015 - 22:28

Okay, there are a few things you can do to help try and diagnose what is wrong.

  1. Try using all of the different drives outputs, do any work?
  2. Try using the GUI example, it uses wiringpi instead of RPI.GPIO
  3. Have you checked you are definitely connected to drive #1?
  4. If you have a multimeter check the fuse is okay (should read about 0 Ohms).
    I have attached an image below circling the fuse.
  5. If you have a multimeter could you measure the voltage output by the PicoBorg?

To get the GUI to work you will probably need to manually build wiringpi.
See the post in the link below for the instructions to manually build a copy of wiringpi:
https://www.piborg.org/comment/693#comment-693

Images: 

js.ajs

Sun, 04/19/2015 - 20:07

Hi,

This might be a silly question but if I have the 3 pins from the Battborg connected to pins 2,4 and 6 how do I go about connecting external components as this takes as this uses all the +5v GPIO pins on the PI.

Thanks

Andrew

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piborg

Sun, 04/19/2015 - 22:17

It is possible to use BattBorg and other devices by a number of methods.
The basic idea is to share the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins between both.

Possible solutions include:

  • Use a TriBorg to create duplicate GPIO headers, use one for BattBorg.
  • Connect the GPIO pins to a breadboard, connect the BattBorg to the 5v and GND pins on the breadboard
  • When using a PicoBorg Reverse or UltraBorg you may connect the BattBorg directly to the daisy-chain header
  • Use a Y cable (splitter) to connect both BattBorg and the other device(s) to the same GPIO pin.
    This can be done doing some soldering of cables as well.

marvelousmarvin

Fri, 04/24/2015 - 12:17

Hi,
It works with RPi.GPIO. Thank you

marvelousmarvin

Mon, 04/27/2015 - 23:34

Hi,
It works really well now on rpi.gpio but does not work on wiringpi. How do you control the motor outputs on the picoborg from rpi.gpio? Is there any way control servos from the rpi.gpio? Thank you!

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piborg

Tue, 04/28/2015 - 08:32

You can use the PWM functionality to control the motor outputs.
In simple terms it adjusts the effective voltage output the same sort of way a light dimmer switch works.

This article explains how you use PWM with RPi.GPIO rather well:
http://raspi.tv/2013/rpi-gpio-0-5-2a-now-has-software-pwm-how-to-use-it

PWM can also be used to control servos, but they will only use a small amount of the PWM range.
This Wikipedia article explains what kind of input the servo expects:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_control#Pulse_duration

You will need to play around with percentages to find the correct minimum and maximum for each servo,.
Be careful, trying to move the servo out of range by too much or for too long may damage the servo.

marvelousmarvin

Thu, 04/30/2015 - 12:09

Hi,
I am also trying to link up a ultrasonic sensor to the raspberry pi. Can I use a triborg and use one of the 5v pins with the picoborg at the same time?

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piborg

Thu, 04/30/2015 - 14:11

You should be able to connect an ultrasonic sensor and a PicoBorg to the Raspberry Pi at the same time using a TriBorg.

marvelousmarvin

Sun, 05/17/2015 - 19:00

Now, when I upload the experimental version it still does work for python.

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piborg

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 11:19

I am a little confused here.

What has been changed since it was last working?

marvelousmarvin

Sat, 05/23/2015 - 19:07

The raspberry pi just stopped working. Nothing has changed. I tested the battery and the motor, they were fine.

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piborg

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 09:41

You said "when I upload the experimental version".

What experimental version did you mean?

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