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Hamish Cunningham doesn't give a damn - DO NOT BUY A MOPI #129

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petaflot opened this issue Aug 15, 2020 · 3 comments
Open

Hamish Cunningham doesn't give a damn - DO NOT BUY A MOPI #129

petaflot opened this issue Aug 15, 2020 · 3 comments

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@petaflot
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this is a duplicate of #123, #120, #117, also possibly #121, #125

settings written with mopicli, git 2ff3831

@petaflot petaflot changed the title MoPi does not save stored settings when shut down MoPi does not store settings when it is shut down Aug 15, 2020
@petaflot petaflot changed the title MoPi does not store settings when it is shut down MoPi does not store settings on-board Oct 4, 2020
@petaflot petaflot changed the title MoPi does not store settings on-board Hamish Cunningham doesn't give a damn - DO NOT BUY A MOPI Oct 4, 2020
@petaflot
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petaflot commented Oct 4, 2020

He has obviously known for over a year the MoPi is inherently broken, yet he fails to take responsibility, share his code or even acknowledge the defect and pretends "all is good".

DO NOT BUY A MOPI : it will not save it settings when shut down (even when still powered up) ; it will not boot with anything less than some 10V on X2 (a or b), even with a massive power supply on X1. It will not wake after the preset delay, and IT WILL NOT CHARGE YOUR BATTERIES (even with enough voltage on X1).

WARNING : THIS PROJECT IS A FRAUD. YOU WILL BE WASTING TIME AND MONEY WITH IT.

@petaflot
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petaflot commented Oct 4, 2020

Those who are satisfied with MoPi2 have obviously not tested it properly.

What the MoPi2 can do:

  • convert some 6.5VDC or more to 5VDC for a Pi, when a power source is connected to either of X2 inputs
  • read the voltages on X2
  • cut power to the Pi after a delay of X+30 seconds

What the MoPi2 cannot do:

  • boot with less than some 9300mV on either X2 input
  • use a power source connected to X1
  • read the voltage on X1
  • charge a battery
  • use the power from X1 when available to power the Pi
  • save its settings in persistent memory (even when powered is maintained)
  • boot after X seconds (you will have to press the button on the MoPi)
  • shutdown in less than 30 seconds
  • reduce LED intensity or disable them (which would be useful for saving battery power) ; in particular D7 is strong enough to make your eyes twitch even in full daylight so I obscured it with some tape.

Additionally, the "mopi" dialog-based configuration is very awkward to use.

I have purchased three of these, all of which exhibit the same behavior. Reports in the bug tracker suggest the problem has been known for over a year without any sort of action from the project maintainer except notes such as "it should work". The project maintainer has obviously no interest in fixing his flawed design. He also has no interest in opening the firmware or full schematics to let other people fix it. This is so bad as him deliberately writing code (within simbamon, see lines 108-128) that actually uploads the user config to the board once after boot so as to make the user believe the config was saved on the MoPi. Evidence in the git repo suggests the relevant code has been here since may 2014.

Although the software reports a firmware version, I have yet to see a trace of firmware upgrades and instructions on how to flash it. Until this is available, with the source code of the firmware and full schematics, I mark MoPi2 as BROKEN / FOR PARTS.

@petaflot
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petaflot commented Oct 12, 2020

I actually purchased 8-cell NiMh batteries in a desperate effort to make myself believe MoPi would work with the default (on-chip) config : IT DOES NOT. Batteries are drained out, never charged.

So that was just a complement to the previous post. HC still somehow expected to make up for his crap.

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