I recieved a Power Brick Mini as part of the Standard Set for the CubeOrange from the vendor IR-Lock.
Out of the box, with default parameters (BATT_CURR_PIN, 15, BATT_VOLT_PIN, 14, BATT_MONITOR_4, etc…) the voltage sensor worked perfectly, but I got absolutely nothing out of the current sensor (just a tiny bit of noise, but no correlation between motors spinning and current reading, even when cranking the amps/Volt up to something crazy like 1000).
I tried switching from the POWER1 to the POWER2 input on the carrier boad, and swapping the associated pin numbers, and once again voltage was measured perfectly, but I got nothing out of the current reading.
I communicated this to the vendor, and they had me send in the Power Brick Mini and gave me a replacement. The replacement they sent me once again seems to have the same exact issue, where analog voltage is measured perfectly, but I get absolutely nothing on the current output.
I even switched the firmware from Ardupilot to PX4, in case someone accidentally broke the battery moniter code, but I got the exact same result; perfect voltage reading but nothing from current.
Is there something I’m still overlooking, or does IR-Lock just have a batch of dead Hall-effect sensors sitting in their warehouse?
I put a multimeter on the pins coming out of the Power Brick Mini: I got 5V on the +VCC pins, and 0.95V on the battery voltage pin (proper for a 3S battery).
When putting the multimeter on the battery current pin I did get a reading that chaged as the motors spun up and down, but it ranged between like 5 and 15 milliVolts at min and max throttle. These readings are way too low for the default Amps/Volt set for the power brick mini (~38.8), and I’m guessing the CubeOrange carrier board isn’t even picking up this small of a reading, hence no current reading on my telemetry.
Did they just solder the wrong amplifer to this powerbrick causing the current readings to be way to small, or can something else on my setup be causing this to happen?
I put the Power Brick on the cable to my charger, and set to discharge at 5 Amps. The current pin read 70 mV, which is actually in the correct order of magnitude for a current reading of 5 Amps. Something must be wrong on my vehicle in that case, perhaps a bad solder on the PDB.
I’ll re-update when I get a chance to take apart my whole vehile and re-solder my PDB.
I plugged the Power brick into 2 different CubeOranges, both Power1 and Power2, while the battery was discharging at 5 amps.
Measuring with a multimeter, I got a steady 70 mV across the current pin out of the Power Brick. Using the default Amp/Volt of 39.8 should give a reading of 2.8 amps. All 4 power inputs on both CubeOranges gave different current readings that were not 2.8 amps, and the current reading jumped up and down by ±0.7 amps constantly.
I have no clue what is happening anymore, this entire ecosystem seems to be borked.
Those are the correct pins for the PowerA connector. Have you tested the cable for continuity?
Try reseating the Cube on the carrier board.
Just enabling BATT2 monitor should automatically have the correct pins set for PowerB connector.
A reboot is required when changing those sorts of battery parameters.