Issues with PI Moroni Cluster Hat

Support
1

Hi
I recently purchased the following from CORE Electronics:-
PI 3B+
PI Moroni Cluster Hat
4 x PI Zeros

After setting it up I found issues with the system.

I found the following appeared to work:
I can use the following quite successfully:
clusterctrl on p1
clusterctrl on p2
clusterctrl on p3
clusterctrl on p4

These all appeared to work okay, in that the PI Zeros turn on and appeared to boot their respective micro sd cards.

I also found the reverse of these also appeared to work:
clusterctrl off p1
clusterctrl off p2
clusterctrl off p3
clusterctrl off p4

Where the problem comes in is when the PI Zeros are ON, I was NOT able to connect to them i.e.
sudo minicom pi@p1
sudo minicom pi@p2
sudo minicom pi@p3
sudo minicom pi@p4

In each case above they connect to Port /dev/tty8 I would expect to see a login prompt allowing me to log on to the relevant PI Zero, so I could then run “sudo raspi-config”

However, instead I end up with a Frozen screen and no ability to communicate to the PI Zeros.

I contacted CORE-Electronics who advised me to return the Cluster Hat.
CORE-Electronics tested the Cluster Hat and found it was faulty.
CORE-Electronics replaced the Cluster Hat, so I have a brand new Cluster Hat.

Here’s the problem. I setup the PI 3B+, The NEW Cluster Hat and the 4 PI Zeros.

Problem: I get exactly the same result. I CANNOT communicate with the PI Zeros.
Minicom yields nothing more than a frozen screen.

CORE-Electronics have advised me to contact you guys.

My concern is, that the first faulty Cluster Hat has caused some sort of issue / damage to the 4 PI Zeros that were connected to it.

Are you guys able to help me with this?

Michael Blucher

Can anyone help me with this? I’ve had the product now since July and I can’t get it to work.

2

Can anyone help me with the Cluster Hat issue?

CORE-Electronics tell me it’s a setup problem. I’m using the relevant prepared images for the device.

The PI Controller cannot connect to the PI Zeros.
Which makes it impossible to configure them, i.e. localization, keyboard, micro sd expansion and SSH etc.

The following instructions are needed to setup my Cluster Hat:

  1. ssh-keygen -t rsa
  2. for I in 1 2 3 4; do echo “Copying to p$I.local”;ssh-copy-id pi@p$I.local;done
    Then I should be able to use the following to connect to the PIz’s:-
    ssh pi@p1.local
    ssh pi@p2.local
    ssh pi@p3.local
    ssh pi@p4.local

Problem: Between step 1 and step 2 I need to do the following to configure the PIz’s
sudo mincom pi@p1.local
sudo mincom pi@p2.local
sudo mincom pi@p3.local
sudo mincom pi@p4.local
I need to connect to each PIz in turn to configure SSH and local settings etc.:

Problem is I get a frozen connection to the PIz’s. I can’t logon to do anything.

Yes, I have turned on the PIz’s.

Can some-one please give me some help with this one?

At the moment I have a product I can’t use and have been stuck in this mode since July

Regards

Michael

3

Hi all,

I have the same exact issue as Michael. The only thing is that the for statement indicates

ERROR: ssh: Could not resolve hostname px.local: Name or service not known

I have set up the cluster by using

https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/clusterhat-review-cluster-hat-kit
And the link to the software within it

https://clusterhat.com/setup-overview

I also added the ssh file to boot after flashing.