The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

Looks like the yellow charge is still on? Nothings hot, or really warn either. I don't think its charging? I'll have to get my voltmeter out latter and check the battery voltage on and off charge. Then maybe swap batteries. I have the same battery and another PowerBoost 1000c in another project. That should tell me if its the PowerBoost or battery that's the issue. It was working, before Christmas, I remember charging the battery just to be sure it worked. I'll have to double check my wiring and soldering too I guess? PowerBoost worked, it powered up the Pi Zero. It all went south when I tried to run my motors? I'll play with it after my morning walk and see what going on. Just going to enjoy my morning coffee for now.

I "think" just the green charged LED isn't working? I get 4.16V on the Bat terminal with no power pack attached. And 4.2V on the Bat terminal with the power pack attached, and the battery unplugged. The charger is running, unless its just not supplying any current? I think I'm going to swap batteries and see what happens.

It looks like its the battery? I swapped it for my other identical one, that was almost fully charged and the green charged LED came on after about 10 minutes. To be honest it would have been better if it had ben the powerboost, I want to replace it with the other one anyway. Now I have to buy another battery. I bought that one back in late October, no way to return it now. Plus the battery is more expensive than the powerboost. Oh well sh1t happens.

I'm talking with Adafruit at the moment on their forum. Trying to figure out if I can safely use that battery. It has three cells, so if push comes to shove, I could open it up and try each cell one at a time. The ones that actually reach full charge will be usable, the one that doesn't goes in the recycle bin. It will be three 3.7 cells (batteries) wired in parallel. Instead of 6600 MAH I'll have 4400 or 2200.

The battery finally did reach full charge. Must have been totally flat / discharged? Got my rover working. Had to go to only two motors. They draw too much current from the Explorer pHat, it limits the current to 200 ma per channel /side. These want 120 ma each for full speed. My bad, should have researched it better before buying parts. Seems to work OK with just 2 motors though. Just don't like that stupid caster thingy.

Not sure which way I'm going to go? New motors or new controller. The gear motors that Pimoroni used in the bilge tank video likely won't fit in my chassis, too long. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/m...ded-back-shaft I'd need new matching wheels too, so that leans to buying this, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/c...wd-robot-rover < What they used in the video. I bit steep at this point after what I've spent so far. I may just replace the explorer phat with something beefier.