DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

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ckozzy
 
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DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

Post by ckozzy »

Hi,

I'm trying to make an RC car with the Adafruit DC Motor HAT. I have everything working as a prototype, with the power to the HAT being separate from the power to the Pi. I want to move to a power solution for the RPi that is more mobile than my current 5000 ma 5V3A battery bank, so I was looking at a handful of RPi UPS HATs. I purchased one, the PiSugar S plus, but once I connect it the DC Motor HAT is no longer detected on I2C. Is this working as intended?

Also, are there any recommendations for UPS/Power HATs that will work for my usecase and are compatible with the DC Motor Hat?

Thanks in advance!

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Please post a photo or diagram of how you have everything connected. The HAT requires 2 power sources.

The logic on the HAT is normally powered from the 3.3v pin on the Pi.
The motor power comes from the screw terminals on the board.

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ckozzy
 
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Re: DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

Post by ckozzy »

Hi, I don't have a picture on hand but the DC Motor Hat already had the GPIO pins soldered on so it was just a matter of plugging in the hat to the Pi's GPIO as well as adding an additional external power source via the +/- terminals. My concern isn't with that portion, as that portion works as intended.

Just to clarify, when running the Pi off of a normal 5V 3A power source (be it wall power or a portable battery bank that is typically used to charge phones), the HAT is properly detected by I2C and works fully as intentioned with Python. I have full control of the motors in this scenario.

As I'm intending to make an RC car, I am looking for solutions for portable power for the Raspberry Pi (to replace the wall power/portable battery bank portion-- I am keeping my external power source that I mentioned above). This is where my issue comes in, as I've tried using the UPS listed below (PiSugar S plus) and the HAT is no longer detected by I2C and no longer interactable in Python. I was wondering if this was intended functionality (it seems like the PiSugar and other UPS HATs use the I2C pins as well) with the Motor hat and if there were any other solutions for mobile power for the Pi if the mobile UPS are no longer an option I can explore.

Thanks in advance!

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

I'm not familiar with the Pi Sugar or how it interacts with the i2c bus.

I2c can support multiple devices on the bus as long as each device is well behaved and has a unique address on the bus. Problems can occur if there are address conflicts, or if one or more devices interfere with the tri-state operation of the SDA and SCL pins.

The Motor HAT supports a wide range of addressing and is known to work well with other i2c devices.

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ckozzy
 
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Re: DC Motor HAT Compatibility with UPS

Post by ckozzy »

I see. Do you have any information with compatibility with other UPS Hats? More specifically, the PiJuice or the PiShop UPS hat.

If not a UPS, any other recommendations on how to power the Pi portably?

Here's the pinout for the PiJuice: https://pinout.xyz/pinout/pijuice
Info on the PiShop UPS Hat: https://www.pishop.us/raspberry-pi-ups-hat-guide/

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