Not to worry, we have seen this problem as well and it seems to be just a software issue :)

From what I can tell it looks like recent versions of the Linux kernel for Raspbian (after 4.4.X) have some trouble with the I2C driver. This causes the commands which read data to receive 0s instead of the real values.

We found it could be fixed by setting the kernel to an older version, the most recent working one being 4.4.50. This can be done using rpi-update with the correct code for the 4.4.50 version:

sudo rpi-update 5224108

This issue affects most of our boards at the moment. Hopefully this will get sorted in the future and it will not be necessary to go back to an earlier kernel version.

Let us know if this fixes the problem for you as well.

Hi, I had the same issue and applied your fix which has worked. Annoying, however, that we can't update our OS. Is there any permanent fix in sight? Thanks. JB

I was about to do a dist-upgrade on my DiddyBorg Pi 3 as I haven't up-dated it for a while. Will this affect my 18 month old PicoBorg Reverse and UltraBorg? Should I wait until you've sorted this out as I don't want my Diddy to get sick and baddy!

We have finished testing the new logic on the PicoBorg Reverse library, it seems to work well on both the old and new versions of Raspbian ^_^

There are three ways you can go about updating the library on your Raspberry Pi:

1. Update PicoBorgRev.py only

This will keep any changes you have made to other scripts intact :)

For PicoBorg Reverse itself:

cd ~/picoborgrev
mv PicoBorgRev.py PicoBorgRev.old
wget -O PicoBorgRev.py https://www.piborg.org/downloads/picoborgrev/PicoBorgRev.txt

Additionally for DiddyBorg installs:

cd ~/diddyborg
mv PicoBorgRev.py PicoBorgRev.old
wget -O PicoBorgRev.py https://www.piborg.org/downloads/picoborgrev/PicoBorgRev.txt

Additionally for DiddyBorg Red Edition installs:

cd ~/diddyred
mv PicoBorgRev.py PicoBorgRev.old
wget -O PicoBorgRev.py https://www.piborg.org/downloads/picoborgrev/PicoBorgRev.txt

2. Re-install the examples

This will loose any changes you have made to scripts and any other scripts in the examples folder, but is much less typing.

For PicoBorg Reverse itself:

cd ~
rm -r picoborgrev
bash <(curl https://www.piborg.org/installer/install-picoborgrev.txt)

Additionally for DiddyBorg installs:

cd ~
rm -r diddyborg
bash <(curl https://www.piborg.org/installer/install-diddyborg.txt)

Additionally for DiddyBorg Red Edition installs:

cd ~
rm -r diddyred
bash <(curl https://www.piborg.org/installer/install-diddyred.txt)

3. Copy / view the new code

This should work in all cases, but is much more manual.

You can view the new version of the library here: Improved PicoBorgRev.py script. This should be used to replace any copies of PicoBorgRev.py.

You can tell if the script is new or old by looking at the import section (starts around line 30).
Old script:

# Import the libraries we need
import smbus
import types
import time

New script:

# Import the libraries we need
import io
import fcntl
import types
import time

No other scripts need to be changed, all of the same functions are available and work in the same way ^_^

UltraBorg

We are fairly certain the same problem exists with UltraBorg and the same changes will fix it. I am going to start working on the UltraBorg library today and will let you know when an updated version is available.

Greetings,
I was wondering if you guys could update your Github repository with the newest fix.
https://github.com/piborg/diddyborg

Thank you for the fix!

Much appreciated, thank you!