jimbo
Just bought my EZB from a authorised reseller from Malaysia. Used it less than a month for learning. Everything works...Then few days back, bzzzt...dead. It says "CONNECTION ERROR" (in a nice female voice). No Red LED or BLUE LED or anything. Checked with my reseller, they say "sorry", no warranty cos they don't get warranty from EZROBOT either. BOOM! Money down the drain.
Decided to check if maybe it was some loose contacts, nope. All OK. However, the main bottom board is hot as hell.
So, This is how I connected the EZB.
- 6 x AA Battery to the EZB for power
- 4 x AA positive and Negative to 5xServos MMG996R. Tapped a negative to EZB
- Servo signal to EZB.
- No other boards connected. Not even the EZB camera that I bought.
Sooo, anybody had this problem? I am sure its not the bottom power board cos the fuse is working and the voice is speaking.
Any help would be good. If EZROBOT is willing to replace a new board for me would be even better. Since its still under warranty.
I would start by replacing all of the AA batteries. They will drain very quickly with this setup. I would suspect that they would last about 10 minutes.
Can you get a LiPo battery and charger in Malaysia? I know some countries ban LiPo batteries. It would be far better to run from a LiPo than from AA batteries.
I have about 20 EZ-B V4's and 4 1/2's. I have blown up a couple, but this has always been my fault. I have seen only a couple of dead EZ-B's in the community though.
Unplug everything, does the EZ-B do anything when nothing but power is connected to it?
I have unplugged everything. In fact, I only plugged in 1 servo at a time. Changed the batteries. Nothing. The voice just says "connection error" once. And the bottom main board gets really hot. (not the one with the fuse). Hot as in ready to catch fire hot. I also cleaned it up to make sure no small bits of wires or anything might be causing a short circuit.. No luck.
So, should I throw it in the garbage bin, or is there a way to salvage it?
Well, what I have done with mine are to separate the boards and then trash the bad one, keeping the other one as a spare.
The top board doesn't have the polyfuse, the bottom board does. Check this video at 1:37. The yellow thing he bends back is the polyfuse.
https://synthiam.com/Tutorials/Lesson/17?courseId=5
I suppose it is possible that you blew both boards, or that there is a short in the top board that is causing the bottom board to heat up. If you believe this to be the case, I would trash it and not risk blowing up another one.
Well, The digital switching power supply area of the board is where its very hot. Maybe I will try to replace the components on the board. Since its already damaged, can't get any worse.
Here goes nothing
@Jimbo - Sorry to hear about your challenge. It is incredibly rare that an EZ-B would fail randomly after working prior. Generally that's the indication of a short, or misuse of some sort. Good luck with the repair!
Regardless if your case would be deemed warranty or not, it is strange that the reseller in Malaysia stated we don't provide them a warranty, because we do. All resellers of EZ-Robot products have the ability to warranty product they deem to be faulty, not damaged. It is up to them to replace the product for the customer (you). They then ship the products deemed to be warranty back to EZ-Robot for further inspection. Which reseller did you purchase from? I will have an account manager reach out to them to remind them of the policies in place so they don't provide false information again.
Hello Alan,
Thank you so much for your help. The authorised retailer is MyDuino in Malaysia. As in your website for International Retailers.
I did ask them and they said they do not cover warranties and also said that they are clearing their old stock and won't be selling EZB anymore.
Anyway, I don't think I misused the board in any way cos it's not really cheap and I took extra care in making sure I didn't short circuit when connecting it.
Maybe its just bad luck I got a substandard card.