Power Supply

The robot currently runs on battery. I need to find a way to power this from a power supply. When the battery discharges, the robot behaves erratically and I once had the problem and ended up corrupting the SD card. I have a power supply for the Raspberry Pi, but the post for the robot canopy gets in the way of the connecter. Is there a power supply I can buy that can power an assembled GoPiGo? Thanks!!!

Hey gmnn,

First, please see our page on powering the GoPiGo. YOu don’t want to run the motors off a USB battery. It can damage the board, the Pi, and the motors, and the battery.

For your design, do you have something heavy on the canopy? If you want to get better access to the power supply on the Pi, I would reocmmend taking the post off next to the power supply. It will give you the space to get a power supply in there.

Also, just to clarify: you’re saying “power supply” and when you use that term, you mean a wall power supply, right? As opposed to a battery power supply?

John

Yes. I meant the wall power supply. I’ll do what you suggest and take off the post. Thanks!!!

Hello, I am thinking about continuous power supply, when GoPiGo will be charged by battery when it is on the run and when it get back to “docking station”, it will connect wall charger and charge the battery and GoPiGo itself…

I found something like this : http://www.adafruit.com/products/2465
It is designed for 5V input/output, so nothing suitable for GoPiGo, so I am still looking for anything better…
But maybe voltage multiplier can be used here.

Or does anybody have a better idea?

Hey,
The GoPiGo needs 9-12V for the motors to work so the Adafruit power boost won’t work because it is for charging 3.7v LiPo batteries and boost them to 5V. Normally we use 8AA batteries but I think it would be very hard to charge them with all of them connected. Something else that you can have a look at are the RC battery packs like this: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/_84472__Turnigy_nano_tech_1500mAH_LiFe_3S_9_9v_Taranis_Compatible.html. They are easier to charge but you’ll have to make a custom adapter so that it can power the GoPiGo and just make sure to use batteries below 12V.

-Karan

Hi Karan, thx for reply. Battery looks good, but for me as a newbie is difficult to create myself any charging circuit, which will control the charging and balance the power in case of charger is unplugged from a wall adapter. Do you have any suggestion here?

Or can we used for Adafruid a voltage multiplier? Adafruid 1000C has 5V output with 1000mA. So am I understand it right, if we will double the voltage to 10V, we will have 500mA? If yes, would it be enough?

Hey,
This might really be possible. You can use two of them to give 10 V and use it with the GoPiGo. There are a few things though, use a battery with a high discharge rate. The motors draw a lot of current instantaneously so the battery should be able to provide it. This one looks good enough https://www.adafruit.com/products/353 at 2C current and you should also read https://learn.adafruit.com/li-ion-and-lipoly-batteries?view=all before you start. The LiPo batteries are still very dangerous to play with and can easily cause a fire if you face over-discharge it. I would really suggest you to go with a robotics grade battery. These are rated 20C plus between 9-12V like this which is light enough: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__66874__MultiStar_Race_Spec_3S_1400mAh_40_80C_Multi_Rotor_Lipo_Pack_For_FPV_Minis.html and a charger like this http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/_76461__IMAX_B6_DC_Charger_5A_50W_Copy.html. You’ll have to research a bit more and tread a bit cautiously on this road since we have not tried it before.

-Karan