10/18/2023 Map Stopped Working?
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Hi,
After solving my problems with getting the livesectional image on the Pi to connect to the internet, I've been running into all sorts of issuing with getting stable lights. I've tried two different breadboards, switching out wires, and different holes in the breadboards to try to solve a common grounding issue, but nothing has produced the desired result. I've also swapped out the level converted a few times. I've attached a video of the issues I'm seeing along with two pictures showing my wiring set up. I'm just doing a basic wiring and was planning to add on/off/refresh switches as well as a rotary switch and a light sensor, but wanted to just get this stable first. I've also attached my logfile in debug mode. Hopefully I'm just miswiring something obvious, but any ideas or help you have would be great. I have four LED strands attached, and at the beginning of the third, I've tied in a second power supply. Both power supplies for the LED and raspberry PI power supply are plugged into a strip together.
Thanks!
Yep, that's not an uncommon issue. The issue is caused by not having the LED's and the RPi effectively grounded together.
Looking at the pictures it seems that you have a ground wire coming from RPi over to your breadboard but I'm not sure if the power supply for the LED's is connected to the ground plane of the breadboard. But let's assume it is.
Use a few other ground wires connected between a few more ground pins on the RPi and the breadboard to see if this helps. Others have used solderable breadboards, to eliminate faulty behavior as you have described. (See https://www.adafruit.com/product/1609)
I know its seems explicable, but each time this has happened to me, I fixed it by making the grounds more robust. Let me know what happens and I'll try to help best I can. - Mark
Thanks again for the quick reply. One of the power supplies for the LED is wired into the bread board and that ground wire is connected to the ground plane of the breadboard, and then the first LED is wired up with power from the breadboard. The second power supply is wired directly into the third LED strand. I tried adding four more ground wires from the Pi to the breadboard using different ground pins but unfortunately the issue seems to persist. At this point should I maybe assume the breadboard is the issue and try the solderable breadboard? I tried to attach a clearer picture of what my wiring looks like now.
Disconnect the RPi's USB cable and let the LED's power supply provide the needed power for both the RPi and LED's that way there won't be a tug of war going on. Let me know. - Mark
@markyharris When I try unplugging the USB power supply, I lose the ability to connect via the web interface although the pi's lights are still on. The blinking seems to stop but I think it's likely because there is no data going from the Pi to the lights. I did try connecting a second 5v pin from the breadboard to pin 4, so both pin 2 and 4 on the Pi should be powered. Should I try adding a second power supply into the breadboard itself?
Thanks for the help.
I'm not sure why you would lose access to the web interface. All that should be done through WiFi. Do you have WiFi setup on the RPi? If so, you should be able to enter the admin URL (i.e. 192.168.1.10:5000) into a browser to get access to the web admin page. Disconnecting the USB plug from the RPi shouldn't effect access to the web admin page at all. - Mark
@markyharris It seems like the Pi doesn't have enough power to run without the USB power cord. As soon as I plug it back in, I have access to the web interface again.
@gwlanger I have seen this when using the RPi4 models. They seem to be very picky when it comes to their power source. Are you able to run a dedicated power supply for the pi?
Thanks,
Bill
