XLoBorg not working under Buster

Submitted by pleriche on Thu, 03/12/2020 - 17:43

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I've had an XLoBorg accelerometer attached to the catflap for several years, monitoring the cat's movements. It's controlled by an original Pi Model B. Recently I decided it was high time I upgraded the OS from Raspbian Wheezy to Buster. Now, the standard driver that was originally supplied by PiBorg intermittently fails to read the accelerometer. I see no updated software at piborg.org. I've cleaned the connections. Should it work? Is there a difference in the i2c driver in Buster? Is there an updated XLoBorg driver? I seem to have blown away the Wheezy image.

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piborg

Thu, 03/12/2020 - 18:10

I am not aware of an issue with XLoBorg and Buster, but we have seen I2C changes which have affected our other boards in the past.

Unfortunately I am working from home this week and I do not have an XLoBorg available to test with. I will be back in the office on Monday and can see if I have the same problems then.

Quick tip: If you need older images of Raspbian they are still available on the official website: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/

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piborg

Mon, 03/16/2020 - 10:44

I have just written a brand new card with the 2020-02-13-raspbian-buster.img (latest on website) and everything seems to be working fine.

The steps I took were:

  • Went through the setup screens - did not do the update
  • Install the base XLoBorg software
  • Download the GraphXLo.py example
  • Enabled I2C in the Raspberry Pi Configuration GUI
  • Restarted the Pi

After this the basic examples all worked (read once). I then left the GraphXLo.py example running for about 15 minutes without error - did some movement to prove the readings were real.

Have you tried with a clean image of Buster? We have seen some odd problems before updating Raspbian, especially from older versions.

pleriche

Mon, 03/16/2020 - 12:04

Thank you. It doesn't look like it's a Buster incompatibility problem then. I managed to dig out an old Wheezy image the other day and it's not working any better though I wasn't quite certain I'd set it up correctly. At the moment the XLoBorg isn't even being seen by i2cdetect.

In fact this is one originally bought for school but which (as I remember) was giving somewhat variable Z readings. You sent us another and said to keep this one so it found a less critical use (https://www.instructables.com/id/Automatic-Cat-Flap-Monitor-With-Intrusi...)

It may have now deteriorated further, or the 4 strands of rainbow cable that connect to it may be failing through continuous flexing, or the connectors have got loose, or it's been zapped by static from the cat's fur. When I've got a bit more time I need to prise it off the catflap (hot melt glue), bring it up to my study and test it properly. I have a spare MPU-6050 which I'll replace it by if it's no longer seviceble. It may have failed before I updated the OS, or I may have disturbed the cables in changing the SDcard a few times, but the coincidence seemed suspecious.

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