PICAR-V, how to power via cable?

Robotic kit for Raspberry Pi
1

Hi,

I recently purchased and built the PICAR-V, and I have everything working. However, I want to change the code and do testing using a wired power cable. I power my Raspberry Pi 4b using a USB-C adapter but it the car is unable to move the servos or motors in this mode. The camera does work though.

The instructions on the remote_control page say “You are also recommended to use the power adapter of Raspberry Pi to power your car for that the first test will take a long time.” so I assumed this worked, but it isn’t working for me.

Can someone confirm what the problem could be, why the car doesn’t get powered even though the raspberry pi is, and how I could fix this?

Thank you.

2
  1. robot hat can only be powered by battery, if you only connect the external power supply to the Raspberry Pi and not connect the battery to the robot hat, the module will not work.
    Because raspberry pi can’t supply power to robot hat directly, but the battery can supply power to raspberry pi through robot hat.
  2. You said the camera can work normally, because the camera is directly connected to the raspberry pi, so it can work normally, if you want the sensor, motor, servo and other modules to work, you need to connect the battery to robot hat power supply.
    If you want the sensors, motors, servos and other modules to work, you need to connect a battery to power the robot hat. The robot hat will dominate the work of the cart.