[Solved] BrickPi3 Motors and Battery Levels

BrickPi
1

Hello,
I want to demo the BrickPi at our annual brick show in Christchurch but I don’t seem to be able to get the motors to work. I am using a BrickPi 3 with a fresh image from the server. I tried to run the motors in scratch using the examples with no success. I then used the Python examples and I also have no success. The motor encoder is read and printed, but the motor cannot be switched on or off. I tried different ports and different motors. I also checked the voltages with the Python script. Given that the encoder information is coming through, the motor must attached correctly. The touch sensor works fine, so the motor python example should also work. But it does not. I have no idea what is going wrong.

Here is a video of the problem: https://youtu.be/_2lA2Hld_sE

Can you please help me quickly?

Thank you,
Christoph

2

Here is the log file from the troubleshooting software:

BrickPi3 Troubleshooting Script log

Checking for hardware, and checking hardware and firmware version.

Manufacturer : Dexter Industries
Board : BrickPi3
Serial Number : 7F1631E1514D32384E202020FF101A2B
Hardware version: 3.2.1
Firmware version: 1.4.0
Battery voltage : 4.354
9v voltage : 9.282
5v voltage : 5.025
3.3v voltage : 3.349

3

I di believe that the BrickPi has a safety cut off of the motors once the battery level gets below a certain voltage and this has caused this problem before for others. Off memory the LED light on the brickPi chages colors or flashes or something like that. Try checking the battery level specs on Dexter website

4

I have now just looked closer at your post and see that it says battery voltage :4.354 and I think the motor cut off at about 7v

5

Dear Shane,
Thank you for your quick response. I put 9V into the BrickPi via a power adapter. I measured its output and I gave the desired voltage. I now reversed the polarity and voila. Everything works. Thanks for the tip!

6