Hi all, I recently got the PiCrawler kit and love it for its versatility and great adaptable design, however I have been running into an issue. Basically when I’m testing the various move functions, the robot will carry out an action 1 or 2 times perfectly fine but then a couple of servos will lose some power, causing the robot to slump on one side and drag itself during the subsequent actions. I suspect this is a power issue of some kind.
I would like to upload a video but I’m still too fresh on the forums, so I’m not allowed to yet.
If the video is too large, we suggest you upload the video to onedrive, then share the video link with us and give us access to it.
Here is the video. Hope you can help me! IMG_4134.MOV - Google Drive
1.What kind of battery are you using？
2.Keep the battery fully charged and run the PiCrawler example to see how it works.
I was using two 3.6V 2.5Ah 18650 batteries. I am planning to power my project directly via a 5V 60W power supply in the future. Would you say this is just a current draw issue?
You are using an incorrect battery size.
We recommend that you select a 3.7V 18650 rechargeable lithium-ion battery without a protective plate
Sorry that was a typo. I am using the correct battery, two 3.7V 18650. Any ideas what the issue could be?
1.Please confirm if the battery power is sufficient. It is recommended to fully charge the battery and then run the example to see the working result.
2.Which example are you currently using? Please let us know.
3.It is also possible that the servo zeroing and servo calibration were not done properly in the initial steps.
Servo Zeroing:
Run
cd ~/picrawler/examples
Then run
sudo python3 servo_zeroing.py
Next, scramble the servo angles and then insert the servo cable into the P11 port. You will then see the servo arm rotate to a specific position (0°). After completing the servo zeroing, continue the assembly following the instructions in the assembly manual.
Note the assembly angles for each spider leg part: 45°, 90°, 90°. Be sure to control the assembly angles properly, first fix the servos in place with screws, then disconnect the servo wires and assemble the next servo, and so on until all the servos are assembled.
After completing the assembly, then proceed to calibrate the spider.