How to destroy a Diddyborg in one easy step

Submitted by joetunn@googlem... on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 19:47

Forums:

PicoBorg Reverse and DiddyBorg

1. Drive over something conductive, and short circuit the battborg on the underside of the diddyborg.

That's it.

I rather foolishly managed to drive my diddyborg over some metal bits and pieces, whilst showing how to drive it to my 5 yr old. We both got to learn how easy it is to break electronics. I'm presuming that the battborg's 5v and 3v connections got shorted out, or possibly 12v into either of these. This resulted in a dead raspberry pi (green and red lights, no other output), a dead picoborg reverse (red light comes on for a few seconds after applying power, never shows up over i2c) and a dead ultraborg (never shows up on i2c). The battborgs seem to have survived the experience. I presume something on the i2c connections has blown. Is there anything I can repair to salvage the borg boards? I've tried with multiple raspberry pi's, clean installs of jessie and different cables to confirm that they're definitely not working.

Thanks for your help!

piborg

Mon, 03/14/2016 - 11:56

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Oh no :(

Well that has not happened before :(

Hopefully we can help you get your DiddyBorg up and well again.
Unfortunately it is hard to tell what has been damaged on the two boards, worst case the logic chips may need to be replaced.

The first thing to do is take a detailed look at the board and see if there are any marks which should not be there.
If you can take photos we can have a look as well.

In the case of PicoBorg Reverse it may have not tolerated having large voltages on either of the I2C pins.
In the case of UltraBorg there are 3.3V to 5V converters which may have been damaged.

The next thing would be to check some of the other components.
If you have a multimeter you could see if the resistors on the boards still make a good connection.
All of the resistors on the PicoBorg Reverse should be 10 KΩ.
The resistors on the UltraBorg should be either 510Ω or 10 KΩ.

joetunn@googlem...

Tue, 03/15/2016 - 20:57

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Thanks for your help. I've

Thanks for your help. I've tested the resistors, which all seem to be fine. I can't see any issues on visual inspection, but attached are photos, in case your eyes are sharper than mine. I fully accept I may need to buy replacements come payday.

Images:

dwphoto

Tue, 03/15/2016 - 21:25

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Sheild

It has occurred to me that the boards on the bottom of the DiddyBorg are vulnerable to damege. This would especially be true if running outside. After your experience, I think I will look into fashioning a sheild for the front-bottom.

Has anyone else done this?

I hope you are able to recover.

piborg

Wed, 03/16/2016 - 11:01

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DiddyBorg Motor/Electronics Guard

SpikeUK did design a 3D printable guard for the underside of a DiddyBorg that simply snaps on to the motors themselves: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:832231

piborg

Wed, 03/16/2016 - 11:24

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Damaged boards

We have had a look at the pictures and we cannot see any obvious damage either.

The most likely explanation at this point is the onboard logic chips have damaged I2C pins and can no longer see the connection.

If you are happy to post the boards back to us we can do some proper investigation and probably repair the boards for you.
This will likely involve the use of a heat gun to remove one or more chips so there would be some cosmetic damage to the boards (slightly melted plastic) but they would work like new ones.

The address to post them back to is:
Unit 15, Earith Business Park
Meadow Drove
Earith
Huntingdon
PE28 3QF

If you could also leave a note in the package to explain the boards are being returned for repair.

joetunn@googlem...

Wed, 03/16/2016 - 21:06

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Thanks

Thank you, that would be amazing. I'm in work all day tomorrow, so will get them posted on Friday. Obviously charge me whatever you deem appropriate. Thanks for your amazing customer service!