GoPiGo2 Can't connect

I have 2 GoPiGo2s. One of them works fine. But the 2nd one has some sort of connectivity problem that we have been unable to solve. With the setup (same computer, cables) that works for the first GoPiGo, substituting in the 2nd, we are not able to connect. This is with the ethernet cable.

I was able to initially set up the 2nd GoPiGo at home and used it both with the ethernet cable and then my home network.
Now when I take it home, I can ping it successfully over my home network, but can’t connect using VNC. Still the ethernet cable does not connect, although the lights do light up.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. As an aside I noticed that the range sensor is really hot.

Now I find I can connecting with the ethernet cable from a macbook, ssh into pi@dex.local, but I am unable to ping dex.local or to get to dex.local with vnc. This seems odd. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Hi @rscherl,

  1. Can you tell us more about the Raspberry Pi’s that you’re using?

  2. Are the Raspberry Pi’s of the same model?

  3. Are you sure you use the same image on both of them? Also, how did you use our Raspbian For Robots image or did you install everything manually? Could you switch the micro SD Cards between them and tell us if there’s a difference?

By the way, the Grove Ultrasonic Sensor gets really hot and that’s why we’ve started producing our own sensors. The alternative to what you have is called a DI Distance Sensor and it’s way more reliable and precise than the former.
https://www.dexterindustries.com/shop/distance-sensor/

Thank you!

Hi Robert:

Thanks for getting back to me. Both of the Raspberry Pi’s are the same model. Both are Raspberry Pi 3 Bs.
Both of the SD cards were with the image that came with the GoPiGo2s. But they were updated months apart.

Over this past weekend, a friend/colleague of mine took the 2nd Pi home and tried to access it from his Linux laptop.
He found that after booting, the Pi would shut down. This was not the behavior that I experienced when using it, but still it shows that something is wrong.
He took another SD card and downloaded the Raspian image from the Dexter site. Then the Pi with the new SD card/image no longer shut down after booting up.
So, we concluded that the SD card must have some corrupted information on it, although it looked ok, when we looked at the files. And the Raspberry Pi itself seems to be good.

So, as far as we know now, things are fixed. I’ll find out for certain when I proceed with the 2nd robot with the new SD card.
If something still seems to be wrong (unlikely), I will let you know.

I wonder if I ought to update it, as stated in the instructions for the GoPiGo assembly.

Also, if you want the problematic SD card, I would be happy to mail it to you.

Thanks for the hint about the sensor. It would be good to have a more precise distance sensor.

Rich

Hi @rscherl,

That is an issue we have also experienced and we’re also looking for a fix. I’m adding the pending label so that the rest of the team can take a look at this thread.

It would be great if you could email me the image.
My email address is: robert@dexterindustries.com

I’m waiting for your input and thank you for your support so far.

Thank you!