MintyBoost hot but not working

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beatles1
 
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MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by beatles1 »

Hey people! So I bought MintyBoost and I put it together tonight, but it's not working for me. I'm new to electronics and soldering so I'm thinking something went wrong there. The MintyBoost does get hot, and I did the finger test thing and it didn't sizzle so I think that's a good sign.
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2013-04-25 20.55.02 (800x600).jpg
2013-04-25 20.55.02 (800x600).jpg (292.86 KiB) Viewed 1844 times

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Did it pass all the voltage tests? Does it get hot with nothing plugged in, or only when you have a phone connected?

beatles1
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by beatles1 »

It gets hot without the phone connected, and I don't have any tool to measure voltage so I skipped that step. Probably not the best idea.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Looks like all the components are properly installed. The bottom photo has a little too much glare to really see the soldering well. If you can post a better shot we can check for any visible short circuits. And if you can borrow a meter, it would really help to know what output voltages you are getting.

beatles1
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by beatles1 »

Hopefully those photos are good enough. So I went over to my friend's house (he's super techy), and we measured the volts. We got 4.9 for the output. So we took his phone USB cable and plugged it into his phone and it started charging! I tried my phone with his cord and it worked too. However, I tried my cord and it didn't work. I then tried both of my sisters phones (LG and IPhone) with their USB cords, and it didn't work. So one out of three cords work. Why is that?
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beatles1
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by beatles1 »

This pic might be better.
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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

I see a few solder joints that have not flowed well onto the solder pad. Have a look at this tutorial and retouch any that look suspicious. http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guid ... n-problems
So one out of three cords work. Why is that?
There are many bad or marginal cables out there. Extra long cables or cheap 3rd party cables often have a lot of internal resistance which causes a voltage drop over the length of the cable.
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beatles1
 
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Re: MintyBoost hot but not working

Post by beatles1 »

Ok. So I fixed the ones you circled and it works! Hooray! But both the red and black wires from the battery pack broke off from the board so I have to buy some desoldering things and redo do those. But thanks so much for helping out! I'm so glad I got this!

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