Trouble seting up the RPLIDAR A2

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Hello,

First of all i would like to thank you for your great work and support.
I am working on a ROVER via Wi-fy connection for my thesis and i have acquired the RPLIDAR A2 and the Raspberry pi 3.
I have some trouble getting the RPLIDAR working, after i use the nodes command on rviz the RPLIDAR start rotating
momentarily and then the raspberry restarts.
I’m using ubuntu 16.04 and i have the latest ROS updates. I Have little exercise in Linux based systems and i have trouble understanding what is the problem but my guess being that it might not have enough “juice” as the [size=2]“Question: RPLIDAR A2 with External Power Bank”[/size] but i can’t really tell. I also use and external battery for my ROVER. What can i do for my RPLIDAR work with the Raspberry pi 3 and is there any other alternatives other than Raspberry pi 3 than you can suggest me?

Kind regards and my thanks in advance.

Andreas Ioannidis

2

Hi,

You most likely have a power issue, as mentioned elsewhere on this forum.

Please note that the RPLidar A2 (specs here) requires a very stable 5 V DC source providing around 1200-1500 mA at startup. If this is not met, the initialization can fail and then the device will not produce data (whether or not it rotates).

We recommend that you add an extra power source that is appropriate for the RPLidar A2.

Concerning the Raspberry Pi 3, it is a great platform to do LIDAR applications such as SLAM on. Actually, if you check some of the comments on the product page, you will see many customers use the RPi already.

Sincerely,