KENN E
I was working on my WALL-E robot and just finished. I then installed all the electronics and the EZB and the blue light came on and a red one was blinking. A few days later, my EZB stopped working and seemed to have "blown out". I am unsure of how this happened as the chip was lit up with blinking lights before, although I never actually got to use the robot with my computer. It was working fine before for the past few days and suddenly it shorted out. More specifically, I hooked up the battery source of 6 (non rechargeable) AA's and the light came on and it appeared to work fine- then the blue light started to dim and then shut off. I then decided to hook up some fully charged rechargeable AA's to the unit. It then flickered and stopped working. I am horrified and worried that it's broken...Should I just buy another fuse? should it work again? What should I do? Please Help! Thank you...
Can you be more specific? Did you apply power in reverse on accident? Are you saying the fuse blew and can verify that?
Is the fuse blown? If you don't know how to tell, you will need to pull it off the board and look at the space between the fuse legs. You should see a small peace of metal running between them and connecting the two. If not you need to buy a new one.
Did you hook up the power from the battery backwards? I read that if you do that you could damage a few things on the board.
I know it's a pain and your in a hurry to get your robot up and running but if the board is damaged or defective in any way it can be fixed. I think if you cant resolve this with people on this forum or you don't know how to repair it your self, EZ Robot may be able to help if you contact costumer support.
Good luck and take a deep breath.
Yes take a deep breath
Disconnect everything - something that is connected to the EZ-B is shorting it out
Can you provide us with a list of things you have connected to it?
Nice to talk to you, Dj...
I have all the motors and sensors connected to the EZB that came in the kit. They are connected in the correct ports. I have followed positive and negative all the way. However, some of my wires are not black white and red- so I assume the "brown" is the negative etc. It is unusual to me as the EZB was turning on fine before, although I haven't programmed it yet...I will say originally, I used hot glue to hold some of the ping sensor's wires in place. I now have changed that- wondering if that had anything to do witht that. The lights no longer light up on the board and the board does't turn on in any way. I am wondering if I should replace the fuse, as it sparked. I'm hoping that will fix things...I don't want to panic
If the fuse has blown something will have caused that to blow, replacing it may only blow the fuse again. Check everything that's connected to the board to make sure you haven't shorted anything. Remove all servos, sensors etc from the board. Replace the fuse. Check the polarity of your supply and reconnect. Add each item one by one after double checking no shorts. Darkest wire is always ground, so towards the inside of the board.
If nothing else it will tell you which item is shorting out the board.
@Rich is right as usual
disconnect everything and then replace the fuse. Reconnect and see if it all comes up and works. If it does, slowly connect things. How the EZ-B is mounted also matters because it could be shorted on the backside. So it depends also on what the EZ-B is resting on, if the back terminals are shorted.
Its not normally a sensitive circuit board, but like all electrical devices... it has its quirks
We'll help you with it
@ kennel , replace the fuse and be sure there is no metal touching the board to short it out. Be sure the positive power wire is in the pos input of the alternate power adapter and negative in the correct port. What I recommend is to turn on ezb with nothing plugged in except the power and get it connected and software updated. Then disconnect power and add one accessory and reapply power. Continue this till everything is plugged in. If there is a accessory that is causing a short and the fuse to blow this is a way to narrow it down in a couple minutes.
Most the time its something plugged in backwards are on the wrong pins to cause a short and fuse to blow. If this doesn't fix you issue take a high resolution pic of the top and bottom so we can see if there's any solder or other just stuck to it that might cause a problem. Good luck - Josh S