So, we've had our BQ78PL116 module and USB-TO-GPIO programming cable for a few months now, and we have tried everything we can think of to turn it on. We are trying to just simply do the resistor demo. However the document isn't very clear on the steps necessary. We wish the writers of the user's manual would make it more user friendly. We always get the same error messages:
"No target found on SMBus" when we try Scan Bus
"Unable to connect to device. Please check power and the connections to the hardware" when we hit Retry
We ran the simulation with Voltages across each cell between 3 to 4.5 volts as specified in the User's manual. We also tried varying numbers of resistors, however it didn't matter whether we used 5 or 15.
We tried copying the setup from
http://e2e.ti.com/support/power_management/battery_management/f/180/t/164090.aspx#597681
however we are still unable to register anything. The board is completely unresponsive.
As we see it there are two options for moving forward, either someone could give us detailed instructions, such as a video demo on how to ellicit a response from the board, or we request that our board be replaced.
Hello,
I believe I had this problem as well with the board as well.
The problem was I had not updated the firmware on the USB-TO-GPIO board.
Try going here and downloading the firmware updater then updating it to the 2.0.19 firmware, then see what happens.
http://www.ti.com/tool/usb2gpio-loader-s
Hopefully this helps.