Panda Plant Guardian

Kits General
1

Hello!

I have the panda plant guardian, but I found that the two 3V batteries don’t last particularly long. Hence, I hooked up a couple of 3V power adapters to each “eye”…I couldn’t see any way of only connecting only one up to both eyes, so that will have to do. It powers up fine—no issues there. The eyes light up, and I can adjust the sensitivity with the wheels…all three colours working fine. However, I’m finding that the little eyes just continually stay on now…they’re supposed to come on and then off every 30 seconds or so. When it was running on the batteries, that sequence did work well.

I checked the voltages, and the power supplies are providing the rated 3V. All the wiring looks fine, and I’ve cleaned and checked all the soldering. I took the main chip out of it’s seat and reseated it. Still the same issue. Wondering if anyone has any ideas about this odd little issue??

2

It could be the power supplies are dropping out.
If a low voltage is detected the processor will reset.
image
In the schematic we are creating 6V to be able to drive the Blue led.
Maybe try with a 5V power supply connected to + of E1 and the - of E2?

3

Aha, OK great thanks for the reply; I’ll try it and report back.

4

BTW, is it possible to simply hook one 6V power supply up instead of what I have now (two 3V power supplies to each battery connector). The schematic shows that the battery connectors appear to be connected.