neither, you plug a battery pack into it

Depending on what additional sensors and other peripherals are attached you can use the Roomba battery power to also power your EZB(4) thus doing away with additional battery packs.

As long as the overall current demand stays below 250 ma on the SCI power and ground pins.

You'll need a battery to power the V4 board (there is a power barrel jack on the side of the V4)... The same battery powers the wifi and camera on the board... Curious, why would you think it worked any other way?

I guess I just didn't read the specs and details properly. So all I need is the WiFi board and a lithium ion battery?

wifi is built into the v4 controller. all you need is a battery. It doesnt have to be a lipo battery. it can be anything from a 5 volt to a 12 volt (i think, could be higher) battery.

There are so many ways to answer your question as there are many different ways of doing things depending on exactly what you want to do. The best I can do i try to paint a clear picture of the constants.

1. You have to supply power to the EZ-B for it to work.

2. The EZ-B has a wifi device in it.

3. The EZ-B has to be connected to the ARC software running on a computer, iphone or android device. This can happen via a direct wifi connection from the computer or other device to the EZ-B, or can happen via a network where the EZ-B has a connection to the network via Wifi and the device is also connected to the network via wifi or ethernet wire.

4. The EZ-B passes power to your other devices on the digital ports without limiting power in any way. For example, if you have a 12 volt battery connected to the EZ-B, it will pass 12 volts to anything that is using the power pins on the digital side of the EZ-B. If your device only runs off of 5 volts, this would release the magic smoke and the device would be rendered useless. This requires you to consider how you want to handle the power going to your other devices.

5. The ARC software running on the computer or other device is the brain of the robot. The EZ-B is the brain stem connecting all of the devices to the ARC software via the network.

6. The controlling device can be any device that runs Windows 7/8 if a computer. It can also be a device that runs IOS or Android. This would allow you to place a small computer,android or iphone on/in the robot and make it self contained.

7. The camera is passing through the EZ-B to the computer to be reported as a camera mounted to your computer. Just because ARC can display the camera image doesn't mean the the ARC software is connected to the EZ-B. The EZ-B will announce that there is a connection when one is made.

I hope this help clear some things up for you and how/why wifi is needed and built into the EZ-B V4.

@d.cochran I think EZ-Robots should build an FAQ tag on the forum that the forum moderators can attach to the best answers for frequently asked questions,. I think you just hit the top 7 of the past 6 months in your reply.

Alan

@alexs... No offence but, I think you need to read the specs again.... What you need is an EZB4 controller, a battery (doesn't have to be a Lipo, you can use 5 AAs or a 7.2 v NiMh) and your Roomba.... Just 3 things and some programming... voila... :)

Just FIY I didn't have any questions regarding how the EZB software communicates with the controller and when I said WiFi board I meant the v4 controller. It is listed as the EZB v4 WiFi controller. @d.cochran I have no questions regarding the WiFi on the controller. And the camera wasn't in my question either.

For some reason I thought that the Power Shell in the pictures housed a battery. Now I realize that the controller just has a power connector and you can connect whatever power source you want to it whether it be AAs or a lithium ion battery they sell in the online store. I'll take a look at the Roomba with my multimeter and see if I can supply power to the controller from the Roomba, if not I will purchase a thin LiPo that can rest on top.

Hey @alexs, wasnt trying to offend you. Based on the questions you had asked, I wanted to try to make things as clear as I could so you would get the answer you were looking for. It didnt look like you had been on the forums much so, I thought I would help by providing the information that you seemed to be looking for, or would probably be looking for soon based on the question you had asked. I am glad that you got the answer that you were looking for.

The reason it is listed as ezb v4 WiFi controller is because the v3 was a BlueTooth controller. While it doesnt control your wifi network, it is specifying that it connects to ARC via wifi. Again, based on the statement, I wanted to make sure you had all of the information necessary.

Good luck and Happy building.

Sorry if I seemed cold in my last post. Thanks for taking the time to supply me with so much information! Like @thetechguru said you just make a sticky with those points you listed.

Hey @Alexs,

Just wanted to mention to you that you can power your EZ-Bv4 from the Roomba battery, the SCI plug has power going to it so you can grab it from there. I have done this with my Roombas :)

Hey @Jeremie that's awesome. I plan on connecting the v4 to the SCI port the same way DJ Sures did in this video made a couple years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMGqyFqM94c

By soldering a PS/2 connector to a servo wire and attaching it to one of the digital i/o pins. How will I also power the Roomba via the SCI port? Will I need to run two wires from the PS/2 connector? One to the i/o pin and one to the power connector?

The EZB(4) has an upper voltage limit of 16 vdc. You may want to place a voltage regulator between the SCI power and ground pins to prevent higher voltages from the Roomba battery getting directly to your EZB(4).

@ d.cochran - Thank you!. This is very helpful to me - I know this info is available in the forum, but having it all in one place is a timesaver.

I agree with @thetechguru - a FAQ (or small wiki) would be great for all of us. It would help the n00bs that ask the same questions over and over (me), and ease the redundancy for the eternally patient members that answer - over, and over, and over and over... :D