Sloppy soldering Q

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skoty0
 
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Sloppy soldering Q

Post by skoty0 »

Hey all, the starter pack was my first intro to hardware stuffs, and the Protoshield was my first time soldering since I was very young in my grandpa's stained glass studio XD

My question is this, I soldered very well for most of the protoshield, except the backmost 5-pins.
Image

As you can see, they got soldered together. My brain was a little fried at this point, probably from the fumes, but I want to know if this is actually a problem.

Should I just avoid these pins? Should I just wait to use anything but the breadboard unmounted from the Arduino and get a solder vacuum?

Oh and also the 2 ground pins on the analog side seem to be soldered together. Since they're both grnd does it matter?

Sorry to seem so newb! I am a newb haha

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len17
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by len17 »

Skoty0 wrote:As you can see, they got soldered together.
Actually, I can't see a darn thing in your picture - it's too blurry. :(
Which pins exactly do you mean?
Oh and also the 2 ground pins on the analog side seem to be soldered together. Since they're both grnd does it matter?
That's fine, those pins are connected on the circuit board anyway.

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skoty0
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by skoty0 »

Well it's all three 5-pins on the back of the protoboard(they're labeled 5V and ground)

EDIT: By back, I mean bottom, underneath the spiffy Adafruit symbol :D

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len17
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by len17 »

That's not a problem, the 5 pins on each header are supposed to be connected. You can see the 5 holes are connected by one long solder pad, which is why the solder all oozed together.

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skoty0
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by skoty0 »

See I thought that might have been the case, thanks for the great replies!

There wasn't a fair warning for someone who is new to soldering lol. However this kit was excellent. Last night I made a series of blinking LED's attached to the photocell, both my brothers thought it was cool lol.

There was one actual mistake on the board though, as I was soldering in GRND and AREF bottom pins (near the 13 on digital side) the pin that was gonna connect to the arduino somehow got pushed through about 2mm. Making an offset. When I tried to heat the solder up top and pull the pin through, I accidently torched the TOP plastic pinholes for GRND and AREF.

Phew that's alot of words that a picture could just describe better.

Also you see here the worst soldered parts on the board haha
(Sorry for the blurry pics, no digicam and this is taken with my netbook webcam)

Image

Question is, will this cause a problem? I'm going to attempt to desolder the two pins definitely before I plug this board into the arduino. And is the loss of these two pins crucial?

Lastly, I will be investing in a finer tipped soldering iron/solder sucker soon. And thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer this post!

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len17
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by len17 »

It looks like the ground and AREF pins are joined by a blob of solder - is that what I'm seeing? If so, that needs to be fixed. They shouldn't be connected together.

It should be possible to straighten out the individual pins with a bit of careful re-heating & fiddling. But even if you were to lose both of those pins I think it would be OK. AREF is rarely used, and I think all the ground hookups are also connected to the ground pin on the other side of the shield so they should still work.

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skoty0
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by skoty0 »

Yep, ground and aref got soldered together. After the "incedent" I just left that part alone.

Since it's been a few days I'm going to go back and tidy this shield up. Since I know now the ground is attached to a 5-pin, and aref is not critical(at least for now I suppose) I'm confident with a little touch up that I can plug in this useful piece!

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richms
 
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Re: Sloppy soldering Q

Post by richms »

To get your photos better, see if there is a macro feature on your camera, or if not try going to your local dollar store and getting a magnifying glass and holding that between the item and your camera (like you were using it to see bigger)

Photos like that wont help when you get to more tricky problems like things totally not working.

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