GoPiGo3 is unable to be detected in mygopigo.com

GoPiGo
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Hello everyone,
Our GoPiGo3 is unable to be detected in mygopigo.com/bloxter.com. Followed the instructions and did the firmware fix, but the check for vital sign is still failed.

The antenna LED was never turned on, no green, no blue, no lights at all, but I was able to see gopigo network on my wifi list.

I have flashed the SD card to the image v2.5.1, but it didn’t change anything.

Please help!! Thanks!!

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What Pi are you using?

Did you try a firmware update?

If you are using a Pi-4, do you have an earlier one, like a Pi-3?

This might be interesting:
Updating the firmware on a GoPiGo-3, using a Pi-4 board, results in a dead system

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Thanks for your replay! We have a Pi-3. We just started with Gopigo and were not able to do much as it was unable to be detected… We flashed the SD card with image v2.5.1 as mentioned in some earlier posts, but it didn’t change anything. Frustrated kiddos here, any suggestions will be highly appreciated! :slightly_smiling_face:

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If you’re able to connect to the Raspberry Pi that suggests the RPi is running OK. May be an issue with the GoPiGo3 board. Have you tried to reseat it?

For official support you can email support@modrobotics.com

Good luck.
/K

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Thank you so much for your reply! How to reset the GoPiGo3 board? Thanks!!

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I meant re-seat it. Just to make sure the connection to the Raspberry Pi is a good one - you’ll have to partially disassemble the GoPiGo3. Check the pins and the holes to make sure there’s no debris that might be interfering.
/K

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Thanks! Tried that, but still no luck. The Antenna LED on GoPiGo3 never turned on, does that indicate a faulty board? Also the board cannot be powered up by the battery pack itself( the green LED will flash for a couple of seconds, then completely off), we had to connect the power supply of the Raspberry PI board. Is this normal? Thanks!!

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No, this is not “normal”, but it IS expected if the firmware on the GoPiGo3 controller is damaged.

In order to power up the device via the battery, you need to hold the power button down until it has completely finished booting. If you let it go earlier, the GoPiGo simply looses power.

In order to successfully re-flash and repair the firmware, you need to have the GoPiGo powered via the battery connector so the GoPiGo board is fully powered. You do this by holding in the power button until you get the Dexter desktop on your monitor.

To repair the firmware on your GoPiGo board, you need to re-flash it by using a copy of Raspbian for Robots. I have not tried this with Dexter O/S. I HAVE done this with Raspbian for Robots and can confirm that it works.

Another thing:
Do not try to use the robot with any other HATs installed than the GoPiGo board itself. Depending on the HAT, especially if it is something like a display HAT, that can cause trouble.

I am assuming the following:

  1. You have a GoPiGo-3  (a 3.n.n revision board)
  2. You have a Pi-3.
    Note: Do NOT try this with a Pi-4 !
  3. You have a good set of batteries, fully charged, or a 12v at 3A adapter to plug into the battery connector.
    Note: Do not try this with a 5v supply connected to the Raspberry Pi itself !
  4. You have verified that the GoPiGo board is correctly aligned with the pins, and is pressed down firmly in place.

You will need:

  1. Keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
  2. A fresh copy of Raspbian for Robots, (you cannot do this with Dexter O/S).

You can download the latest version of Raspbian for Robots, (Stretch), here:
https://www.dexterindustries.com/download/r4r_stretch

The instructions for flashing the image can be found here:

If you are using Windows as the host computer, Etcher is the best way to flash it. (IMHO)

What do do:

  1. Flash the image downloaded above to a SD card. (It will erase everything on the card)
  2. Install the newly flashed SD card into the Raspberry Pi.
  3. Connect batteries, monitor, mouse and keyboard.
  4. Press the power button on the GoPiGo board. You may have to hold the button in until the GoPiGo fully boots.
  5. This may take a few moments, and the Raspberry Pi may shut off. If it does, go back to step 4 and re-start it. This happens because the first boot resizes the filesystem and does other important fixups.
  6. Once you get the GoPiGo booted to a desktop, look for the Dexter Updater.
  7. Double click on the Dexter Update icon to open it.
  8. Near the bottom of the dialog that opens, you should see a setting that says “Detected Robot”. It might be blank or it might say something like “Grove Pi”.
    Change it to say "GoPiGo3"
  9. Select the button that says “Update Firmware”
    Several things will happen in a terminal window and after a moment or two, it will finish.
  10. Press the power button to shutdown the robot.
  11. While the robot shuts down - the green “power” LED should blink red - it should power off when done.
    Note: Sometimes after shutting down, the power LED blinks purple. If it does that just un-plug the batteries and plug them back in again.
  12. Press the power button briefly, (like a second or so), and the green power LED should come on, blink, and then become steady.

The WiFi LED may not come on as there are some configuration steps needed in Raspbian for Robots to enable WiFi.

Once the power light comes on, blinks, and is steady without having to hold the button in, you should have a good firmware flash.

Power down, replace the SD card with the one with Dexter O/S on it, and restart.

Things should boot normally, you will - after a few moments - get the green WiFi LED lit, and you should see the Dexter O/S desktop on the monitor.

At this point you should be able to connect to the GoPiGo’s wireless access point, and then browse to 10.10.10.10 to connect to the GoPiGo web interface.

Let us know what happens.

If things still fail to work, let us know what happened. I will do what I can to help, but you may have to go through the e-mail support channel mentioned above.

The bottom line is that it’s pretty difficult to totally brick a GoPiGo3. Not impossible, but damn difficult unless something is seriously wrong. So, it’s a better than even money bet that we’ll be able to get this beastie working.

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