Problem with USB Boarduino

[abqlewis]

I bought a USB Boarduino a while back to give as a gift. It took a while, but I taught my nephew how to solder (I just taught myself a few months ago), and we got the board put together. We plugged it in, loaded the Blink sketch, and it worked! The blinking LED said "mission accomplished." But something didn't look right. The green Power LED never lit up. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the LED is very askew on the pads, there was a solder blob from pins 7-8 of the FTDI chip, and a solder blob on 2 pins of the USB connector (as I look at the connector from the solder leads side, the leftmost 2 pins are shorted). I measured across the LED and it reads a short in both directions. So I think the LED pad is just shorted across the PCB SMT pads.
I was able to remove the FTDI solder blob with an Xacto blade (didn't really help though), but I have never dealt with soldering an SMT device (USB connector or LED).

1) Do I try to fix the USB connector pin, and the D1, and return the board if I screw it up more? Or...
2) Do I just return the assembled board, get a new one and try again?

[adafruit_support_bill]

Can you post a photo of the suspect components & solder joints?

[abqlewis]

Ok, it took me a while, but I finally got some pictures of the board.
The first shows the skewed SMT LED below the USB connector.

IMG_2239.JPG (746.18 KiB) Viewed 877 times

This is the LED that does not light up. It reads a short across it (in both directions), but I don't know if there is a solder blob under it, or if the lead is just shorting pad-to-pad. There was a solder blob on pins 7-8 of the FTDI chip, and you can barely see the mark I made with an x-acto blade to take it out. But that did not fix the LED.

IMG_2240.JPG (711.41 KiB) Viewed 877 times

The second picture shows a solder blob on the USB connector leads. Although this looks right out there, you can notice from the previous picture that this is wedged a little underneath the end of the connector. Not easy to get to, but I don't know if it is causing the problem or not.

The rest of the USB-Boarduino (and the other USB-Boarduinos) works OK. Before I realised the problem, I loaded the Blink sketch and the other LED blinks. I haven't plugged it in since, out of concern for my USB ports.

[adafruit_support_bill]

The 2nd pin from the left on the USB connector is not used. It is just tied to the ground pin next to it. However, the LED does look quite skewed on the board. If you want test your SMT soldering skills on a repair, go ahead. If it doesn't work out, let us know and we can arrange for a replacement.

[abqlewis]

OK, so I got the SMT LED off the board. It was quicker, and easier than I thought. Before I put it back on, I decided to take a DMM to the circuit. When I measure resistance across the isolated LED (in both directions), I get an open. Not really good. I thought these were supposed to read high ohms one way, and low ohms the other. When I measure the resistance between the PCB pads of the removed LED, I get a dead short. That seems bad. I checked and I don't see any solder globs from pin to pin.
I had good intentions, but I'm starting to think this one is beyond my reach.

[adafruit_support_bill]

OK then. Contact support@adafruit.com about a replacement and include a link to this thread.