RaspberryPI reboots when running 2 motors at full speed

BrickPi
1

I have attached two motors to the BrickPI, and as soon as I enable both of them at speed 255 the RPI reboots. I am powering the board using a power adapter, so maybe that has something to do with it?

2

Hello,

It does sound like a power issue. Which board are you powering, the Pi itself, or the Brickpi?
And what voltage is your power adapter giving?

The brickpi expects 8 AA batteries. Powering the Raspberry Pi with a cell phone charger is not enough (I’m not sure that’s what you’re doing though)
http://www.dexterindustries.com/BrickPi/getting-started/power-up-the-brickpi/

Cleo

3

Hi Cleo,

Thank you for your response. It appears to have been a wiring issue. I am now able to run the robot with the battery pack quite nicely.

Thank you.

4

YEAH! Thanks for coming back here and letting me know.

Could you describe what the wiring issue was? In case it happens to someone else in the future.

Cleo

5

Ooops, I did the horrible thing of not being helpful to others in the future.

Long story short - I tried connecting the battery raw wires to the raw wires coming out of the BrickPI power connector. They were too short, so it was hard to keep them connected well. I am guessing that when the robot moved it had enough instantaneous acceleration to dislodge the wires and cut the power off. I ended up buying two DC adapters like this https://www.adafruit.com/products/369?gclid=CjwKEAjwp-S6BRDj4Z7z2IWUhG8SJAAbqbF3DD-X4W-vsAH5yuarSk05i0r8rs_4yLG0sJJlIodu6BoCWQrw_wcB - one female, and the other male. Once I had them connected with adapters all power issues disappeared.

6

Thanks for the follow-up. Sounds like you needed nice debugging skills to figure this one out! There’s not much I could have done to debug this without holding the project in my hands.
And those are nice little connectors. Adafruit does great stuff, don’t they?

Cleo