Crashing on move entry

[hermy65]

We built one of the chessboards for my son to play and we cant even get through a full game without it crashing. Sometimes the crash just happens randomly and the board does the startup green cell by cell animation mid-game when the screen says thinking, other times, and most often its when he pushes the hint button. Sometimes when using the hint button the coordinates change to multicolors and then the board crashes, other times it just hangs there and does nothing. Below are 2 videos, one showing using the hint, then the coordinates going multi colored then crashing and one showing the hint button just causing the board to hang and never do anything.

Video 1 - multi colored coordinates and a crash
Video 2 - hint button leading to board freezing, bad coordinates in the screen and nothing happening on the board itself

Running on all of the hardware in your build guide except we are using a pi 3 b instead of the a

[cheepiao]

I just completed this Smart Chess today. I only try out the first game, it had been running fine so far. Thanks.

[cheepiao]

We built one of the chessboards for my son to play and we cant even get through a full game without it crashing. Sometimes the crash just happens randomly and the board does the startup green cell by cell animation mid-game when the screen says thinking, other times, and most often its when he pushes the hint button. Sometimes when using the hint button the coordinates change to multicolors and then the board crashes, other times it just hangs there and does nothing. Below are 2 videos, one showing using the hint, then the coordinates going multi colored then crashing and one showing the hint button just causing the board to hang and never do anything.

Video 1 - multi colored coordinates and a crash
Video 2 - hint button leading to board freezing, bad coordinates in the screen and nothing happening on the board itself

Running on all of the hardware in your build guide except we are using a pi 3 b instead of the a

I just wondering if the power supply plays a part? May I know what is the power supply rating you are using? The NeoPixel LED should takes up a bit of power from the power supply and it leave very little for the Raspberry Pi and others if the power supply is under powered. Thus, unstable power supply may cause strange issue. Well, just a thought, not sure if this could be the real cause. Hope you could find the root cause so that your son could enjoy the game soon. Cheers! :)

[DIY-Machines]

Insufficient power (as @cheepiao suggests) or perhaps a shorting wire could be likely candidates. What is the power supply you are using at the moment?

[hermy65]

@DIY-Machines

Using a CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3+ power supply right now. Is there one you would recommend instead?

This one to be exact - https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Supply-Adapter-Listed/dp/B00MARDJZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=33UO4M985DU2M&dchild=1&keywords=micro+usb+power+supply&qid=1624291982&sprefix=microusb+power%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-3

[DIY-Machines]

That should be plenty of power available.

I know it's a little awkward, but can you play it with the control panel (the one with th buttons and the one with the screen) unscrewed so that you can have internal electronics spaced out as much as possible whilst you play to also see if it's a wire shorting a circuit and causing a reset.

There have been many of these built and this is the first occurrence of the issue so we are trying to figure out how yours may differ from the build video.

If the problem continues with the parts having no ability to short themselves, you could check for power issues dialling down the brightness of the playing surface LEDs. Can you re-upload the code to your Arduino Nano but change line 74 of 'Chess_Simp.ino'

chessboardLEDS.setBrightness(255);

Change the value of he brightness from 255 down to something like 100. Does the issue still present itself after the?

[cheepiao]

Hi Lewis, glad that you share the 'Chess_Simp.ino' code to lower down the brightness. I was about to ask how to do that. Appreciated and thank you.

[cheepiao]

@DIY-Machines

Using a CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3+ power supply right now. Is there one you would recommend instead?

This one to be exact - https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Supply-Adapter-Listed/dp/B00MARDJZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=33UO4M985DU2M&dchild=1&keywords=micro+usb+power+supply&qid=1624291982&sprefix=microusb+power%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-3

Ok.... however, noticed rating by some of the users in Amazon stated that the power supply does seem not so promising in keeping stable voltage upon higher load. Anyway, as what @DIY-Machines suggested, I had tried to reduce the brightness for all LEDs (both chess board and panel) from 255 to 20 and the power consumption really reduce significantly. I did not do any electrical measurement but I just touch the power adapter and it feel much cooler. Hope this helps. Have fun. Cheers!

[hermy65]

@DIY-Machines he played 2games with all of the electronics pulled out, he said he got to about 2 moves left in the game and it started the green cell thing each time. We made the brightness change and the same thing happened.

[hermy65]

@cheepiao have you found any other power supply options worth looking at?

[cheepiao]

@hermy65, actually I ordered a PWR+ power supply (supported up till 3.5A) from Amazon before I tuned down the brightness of the LEDs. But, with the brightness of LED lowered, it may not be necessary to get a more powerful PS anymore. Anyway, the power supply is on it way and will try it out once it arrive. Have a wonderful weekend.

[cheepiao]

@DIY-Machines,
Good day, I would like to highlight something about the experience while playing so far... I never get to complete a game and when I get to "Checkmate" the computer, it always stay at the "thinking" state and never show any "end game animation" that I have won. Also, it seems I only can activate the "shutdown" sequence (by holding the Hint and H8) at the end of the game but not during game play. Anyway, I will try again when my new power supply arrive and see how it goes... Thank you.

[DIY-Machines]

@cheepiao
I believe you may have found a bug in the code. Do you mind creating a new 'issue' on Github for Checkmate handling and repeating your information. I'm rebuilding my chessboards so I can re-run and check the code for the issues you are finding. The end game ones were particular hard to troubleshoot as I know it was working when I added the end game handling but it seems something else has 'broken' that bit of code and I didn't always have the time to play lot's of games whilst refining the software - particular right to the end. :/

[cheepiao]

@DIY-Machines
I had created a new issue entitled "Checkmate handling and shutdown ". Really appreciated it. Thank you.

[DIY-Machines]

Just an update: I'll have finished putting my chessboard back together today. I have decided to first figure out a way to log what's happening so that when the problem surfaces itself you can send a log for me and others to look at to help accelerate troubleshooting. Once this logging is added to the software I'll provide a link to the revised code which will need applying to your board(s).

[DIY-Machines]

@hermy65 I've got to join the family on a holiday this week and will be scolded if they find me working on this. :) For the time being can I ask if you mind trying to capture one or two examples of your board crashing out of a game? If you don't mind, please do the following:

• Power up your chessboard
• once the start up sequence is complete VNC to your Raspberry Pi (or SSH or connect a screen and keyboard)
• Open a terminal (if you VNC'd) and then navigate to SmartChess/RaspberryPiCode/ " cd SmartChess/RaspberryPiCode/ "
• Start the chess game script with "python2 StartChessGame.py"
• Press CTRL + C to interrupt the code and then launch it again using "python2 StartChessGame.py"
• Press the reset button onto of the Arduino Nano

You should then be able to play a game whilst monitoring the output from the Raspberry Pis code in the terminal. When the game crashes please can you copy the output from the terminal and post it here along with a description of your last few physical interactions with board?