Motorshield

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davidb_
 
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Motorshield

Post by davidb_ »

Had my Motorshield come up successfully first time! My first soldering project other than plumbing for about 15 years! Had it driving a 12V motor from offboard psu from demo library. Worked on it for about 15 minutes or so. All good.. Now returning about 6 hours later I found when I powered on the UNO just powerlight and no normal flicker of the comms led's and no sign of my UNO in the serial ports of my MAC. Taken the MS off but same problem. So I'm thinking I have made a soldering mistake on my MS but I'm just curious if you folks have any other debug ideas before I start again. I obviously don't really want to plug in MS to another UNO before I figure out if poss what went wrong. I did read about a feature of the comms link on the UNO that has a fuse, will that reset itself?

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by Franklin97355 »

If you think you have a problem with your soldering/wiring it would help if you post large, clear pictures of both sides of your board.

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davidb_
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by davidb_ »

Thanks here is the front

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1639648/DSCN3106.JPG

BTW is there a way to up load direct into the forum posts?

and the back.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1639648/DSCN3107.JPG


Many thanks

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by Franklin97355 »

One or two could use a bit more solder and a few could use a reflow and some solder removal.
http://talkingelectronics.com/FreeProje ... age13.html

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davidb_
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by davidb_ »

Ok - thanks for the feedback I think I can see where you mean.

In your opinion, and fact that it has taken out my UNO, do you thing it is worth risking it again on a new one. I guess do you think the possible connection issues may not have been fatal!!

Thanks again for taking a look..

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

franklin97355 is correct about some of the solders, but I don't see anything that looks like a short which could have damaged your UNO.

Is it possible that you were running the shield on your external 12V power while the power jumper was installed? That will feed 12V back into the Arduino. The arduino power regulator can handle 12V, but not necessarily for a long time.

The symptoms you describe sound very much like you had the jumper installed, and burned out the power regulator.

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davidb_
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by davidb_ »

Yep - I agree but I'm 100% +ve I didn't install that jumper. One thing I cant remember is the order I disconnected the power if I had say unhooked the 12v leaving the UNO to power through the USB could that have done for the serial coms somehow? Dont know if that could be significant or not I'm assuming without jumper set then the UNO is just driving logic signals to the MS... Have a new MS kit so going to try from scratch!

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Motorshield

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

davidb_ wrote:if I had say unhooked the 12v leaving the UNO to power through the USB could that have done for the serial coms somehow?
No. Your motors would not have turned, but the USB port would not have provided enough current to damage anything.

If you try a new UNO, keep checking to see that nothing gets hot.

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