Garmin Lidar V4 with SParkfun Qwiic and I2C extender endpoint

Qwiic System
1

Hi there, I have a project that uses the Garmin LIDAR-Lite v4 LED - Distance Measurement Sensor (Qwiic). I am also using the SparkFun QwiicBus - EndPoint. I know my system is connected and working fine. When I try other I2C sensors, I have no problem using the EndPoint. The LIDAR sensors works just fine when plugged directly to the Qwiic connector on the Arduino controller board, it also works using the extender, but only with very short cable.

Since the Garmin LIDAR-Lite v4 requires 5VDC to operate and the Garmin LIDAR-Lite v4 LED - Distance Measurement Sensor (Qwiic) has a 3.3vdc to 5vdc boost converter onboard, I suspect I am getting a voltage drop when using a longer cable. I am wondering if anyone else has run into this? or is the fine folks at SparkFun might have a solution.

PS, I have tried this a variety of Arduino boards, as well as the Spark Fun ESP32 Thing Plus.

2

That sounds plausible; you can always grab a multimeter and measure the voltage being delivered to check

You can also try powering the system from the other end instead and see if it works that way (I had one project where the sensor used a lot of power and the MCU was light on power, so swapping the source around make sense/worked)