OpenCR 1.0 voltage regulator dead?

Technical Support
1

Hi there,

I’ve got a bunch of aging OpenCR 1.0 boards (mounted on TB3) having a faulty power supply. Every time the STATUS LED blinks it slightly drops the intensity of the POWER LED, that’s already a bad sign. Attaching a load, as simple as a Raspberry Pi drops the 5V to 4.5V (the Raspi red POWER LED lights ont but it won’t boot). I think the voltage regulator is dead.

Since several boards of mine act this way, some of you might have expected such issue and made some diagnostics?

2

Hi,

It could be the voltage regulator, but if I were you, I’d try using multiple different power sources to test the output voltage.
Please be aware that DC12V regulator shares power with DC5V, therefore, sum of these powers should not exceed 55W.

If you have tested your boards with identical power supply, I’d try switching 10A fuse on the bottom of the board and see if it makes any differences.

Lastly, if you have multiple Raspberry Pi boards, try connecting different one and see if this resolves the issue, because sometimes damaged Raspberry Pi shorts the circuit while it looks like working well.

If all of the above does not help to resolve the issue, then some of the IC on the OpenCR could be damaged and may not work properly.

3

Thanks for your answer.

I forgot to mention a couple of tests I made:

  • external 12VDC or battery end up to the same faulty result
  • 10A fuse replaced with no change either
  • Several Raspi tested with no change
  • We’ve always be using the Turtlebot in the textbook case for TB3 (just 2 motors + a raspi) so I doubt we ever used more than 55W but this is a durable issue even if only the Raspi is powered anyway

The strange thing is that I have several boards with this exact same power supply issue. Yeah I assume this is an IC issue but it could be nice to identify and change the faulty parts.