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Last active April 18, 2018 11:38
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Roomba power supply + serial interface for Raspberry Pi
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Roomba exposes both unregulated battery voltage (+14v, GND), and a 5v TTL serial interface via it's mini-din connector. Also exposed is an active-low signal pin called DD (Device Detect) that can be used to wakeup a sleeping/off Roomba.

Rpi has a 3.3v TTL serial interface exposed on it's header pins. Also, Rpi exposes +5v, +3.3v, GND, as well as GPIO pins.

We can leverage the Roomba battery to power the Rpi by adding a voltage regulator circuit between the roomba min-din battery pins and the 5v/GND power pins on the Rpi header. I've chosen the following part from the RC community (called a UBEC Universal Battery Elimination Circuit) to power the Rpi: this or this

To convert the 5v Roomba signals (both serial and DD) to/from 3.3v, I've chosen this: logic level converter

To make the connections at the roomba side, you'll need a male mini-din connector. I found these on ebay in bulk from china. Search: mini din connector 7 pin

For hook-up wire, I used 24AWG solid core wire and crimp connector pins/housing from Pololu.

@danivoic
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I am using Create 2 and while the serial-to-USB cable works great to command the robot, I get no power from the red/purple cables. Any thoughts?

@stursby
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stursby commented Nov 18, 2016

@mharsch could you provide a wiring example? I'm trying to hook up my RPi to a Roomba using the same Sparkfun logic level converter.

@ilmarivikstrom
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@Daniel-Muci did you manage to power the RPi from the Create 2?

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