No WiFi being broadcast by Tello EDU after plugging in USB OTG cable

[lennertjans]

Hi all,

First of all: love this forum, been a great help so far! I'm developing some hardware via a raspberry pi zero W that will be mounted to my Tello EDU that allows me to write custom programs in Python which then can control the drone to perform some skywriting.
Hardware used is very similar to the post of @martinpi: Onboard Raspberry Pi. Once finished I'll try to post some more information regarding the project, still have some work

So far so good: the raspberry pi can command the drone. To provide power, I first had a battery powered solution but to increase the performance (~reducing weight), I tried to power the pi from the USB connector on the Tello via an OTG cable.

This is where things get weird:

• booting the drone with the OTG cable attached (not even a raspberry pi, see attached picture) --> I get a stable 5V out of the connection but the Tello doesn't generate a WiFi signal
• booting the drone with no OTG cable attached --> a WiFi signal is broadcast but connecting the OTG cable later doesn't supply the 5V on the connector

For my application it is clear I would need both the 5V output from the USB and the drone to generate its WiFi signal for the pi to connect to.
I've browsed this forum and other posts on the internet (f.e. this YouTube link) but cannot find why I'm seeing this effect.

Hope there is someone to save the day, since it's part of a marriage proposal

Thanks in advance, very much appreciated!

Kind regards,
Lennert