I think's Bill judgement is overly harsh. It is pretty certain in this case that the problem is a dead battery. A single-cell LiPo, like the Mints have should normally be 3.00V-4.25V. Any voltage outside that range (i.e. over charging or over discharging) indicates a possible permanent damage to the cell. In this case, the reported measurements of 1.9V-2.1V are clear signs of a dead battery. Regardless of how it got to this state, replacing the battery should fix it. I'm not well enough familiar with the Mint circuitry to know why it happened. LiPo charge / discharge controllers should typically shut down in under-voltage conditions, saving the battery from failing.
The down-sides of the v1 boards vs. v2 boards are not significant for many applications: 1. The IOIO-OTG (v2) can act as a USB host or device whereas the v1 boards can only be host. The device functionality only matters whenever: you want the IOIO to work with a PC, RaspPi, BeagleBone, etc. or if you have a host-enabled Android and you want the Android to be able to power the IOIO. 2. The v1 boards have to use IOIOManager for firmware upgrades. This requires having an *older* Android device available for the upgrade process, with Android version < 4.1. This *does not* mean the the v1 only works with older Androids. What's said here only applies for a one-time upgrade procedure. So hopefully this sheds some light and hopefully with a new battery your problem will go away. On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Bill Carter <[email protected]> wrote: > > I bought a Mint about 3 weeks ago and have had a lot of trouble with it. > Initially it would connect via BT, but often I would have problems like you > describe. The other day I measured the output voltages on the 3.3V and 5V > power pins and they were at least .5V low. I couldn't get my voltmeter > probes on the battery output pins so I don't know what it makes but I > suspect it is low. > > Have a look at this thread. > <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ioio-users/DlcIBHwErEw> Ytai > says that the Mint is not a standard IOIO board, it has a step-up circuit > that is supposed to boost the battery to the 5V minimum required by the > board. But looking at your findings, I am thinking that my battery (and > yours) never has put out enough voltage to power up the board properly and > if so that means the BT dongle is probably also not getting enough and will > be flaky or inoperative. > > Another problem with the Mint is that it is obsolete downrev hardware, it > is a V1 board and cannot now be easily upgraded to the current firmware > level (which you definitely do want). > > I recommend that you save yourself a lot of trouble and return the Mint. > Get yourself the IOIO-OTG board and immediately upgrade the firmware to the > most recent version. You will have to come up with your own power supply > and mount/enclosure for the board, which is inconvenient, but in my opinion > it is the right way to go. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "ioio-users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ioio-users. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ioio-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ioio-users. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
