JetBot: Jetson Nano powers off when connecting motor driver

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Nano
1

Hi! I was wondering if anyone had any troubleshooting suggestions for me.

I have been building the JetBot, but when I connect a powered motor driver, the Jetson Nano Dev Kit powers off. Specifically, when I connect the Ground and 3.3V from a powered motor driver to the Jetson Nano Dev Kit headers is when the issue occurs.

I’m using the same battery pack from the parts list. I’ve double checked the polarity of the power going to the motor driver. I through I might have had a bad motor driver, but I had an extra one and tried that (with the same behavior).

I’ve checked all the wiring, header connections and am running out of ideas for how to troubleshoot. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks!
-Joe

2

did you try other power sources?

3

Hi Joe,

I had a similar issue powering my Nano from a USB power bank where it was powering off under load. The issue for me turned out to be because I was using a low quality USB to power cable, like this one… https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009JXJITS . The resistance in the cable was causing the voltage to drop under load and powering everything off.

I made my own with 20awg cable going to both USB ports on the power bank and it’s all happy now.

Cheers,
Will

4

Thanks everyone for the advice. Will – your comment led me to try other cables. In fact it was a cheap cable. That led me to discover that I was testing polarity wrong.
Thanks!