Pi Girl Zero White screen

[adafruit_support_mike]

What you experienced was a fairly normal part of the troubleshooting process.

Dealing with a circuit that doesn't work can be extremely frustrating, and when you start trying to think of possible reasons for the failure, all sorts of ideas will occur to you. If they don't, you aren't brainstorming well enough. There have been times when I've found myself questioning Ohm's Law.

The trick is learning to hold those ideas lightly, especially when the other alternatives are "I'm missing something" and "I've done something wrong." I've never found an exception to Ohm's Law, but I have found lots of situations where what I expected was wrong.

Hardware forces you to be humble because it's absolutely impartial. It doesn't negotiate, and doesn't care how hard you've tried.

Thing is, it also doesn't judge. You get as many tries as you're willing to take, and if you have to try a hundred times before something works, you got it to work. That kind of neutrality takes some getting used to, but is kind of relaxing once you do get used to it. You can fail a hundred times without feeling bad because it just means you haven't found the working combination yet.

Being human though, we want to defend the effort we've invested so far. That makes assigning blame externally a huge temptation. Sometimes it ends up being correct, but in my experience, it's usually a distraction that keeps me from finding the real problem sooner.

[charliebitme]

Very well said! Thank you :)

[charliebitme]

The only thing not working for me now is the keyboard. I'm using a keyboard that works with the Raspberry Pi Zero. I can use it with my other Zeros just fine. I'm plugging it in using a USB hub that also works fine with my other Zero.

The only two outstanding differences (that I'm aware of) are:

1) My other Pi Zeros have been updated, the Pi Girl has not because I don't have a keyboard. Maybe there was a driver in the updates that made the keyboard compatible...? The other Pi has the latest image from Raspbian, the Pi Girl has the image from Adafruit.

2) I may have destroyed the USB port. The solder job I did on the micro USB that comes with the Pi Girl has a few shorts in it. I didnt find this out until I plugged it in and shorted out the Pi Zero. Maybe at some point I somehow broke the USB port by doing this? Seems unlikely but maybe...

Any suggestions?

[adafruit_support_mike]

Try swapping SD cards with one of the other Zeros whose keyboards do work. That will let you test the USB port, and you can use the results of that test to decide what comes next.

[charliebitme]

Ok I just tried this, I can't see anything displayed because my other raspbian image which is connected to the keyboard works over hdmi instead of the tft hat. I also can't test the Pi Girl SD card on my other display because its hdmi, otherwise I'd just expand the file system and install games there.

[charliebitme]

Small Update:

I was able to expand the File System through RetroPie so I went ahead and plugged in a usb thumb drive (into the Pi Girl) to load some roms. The light on the thumb drive blinked for a second and turned off, very quickly. I let it sit there for a few minutes and then removed it. I checked and unfortunately the Pi Girl hadnt made the proper roms folder for the roms. So it looks like it's not accessing the drive via the same usb port that isnt working with the keyboard.

I also unplugged and then plugged the usb cable back in, which at first did nothing but after a few seconds the Pi Zero screen turned black and it rebooted by itself. I was able to repeat this behaviour several times. Neither the usb keyboard nor the usb thumb drive worked after (or before) the reset.

So this gives us a little more to go on but not much...

[charliebitme]

I purchased 4 more "Tiny OTG adapters" because I'm certain there was a short in the one I had soldered originally. I checked it with my multimeter and it had several shorts in it. The new one I put together seems like it doesnt have any shorts at all, but when I plug it into the Pi Zero and boot up it doesnt work (no keyboard control) so I'm still SOL. Not only does it not work but its also causing my Pi Zero to reset whenever it gets moved slightly. In other words: tried a few more things but no dice. I'm sitting here with an *almost* fully working Pi Girl Zero project, my 3D case is all prepared and sanded down, I have everything I need to finish this build. Except of course a working USB drive...

[adafruit_support_mike]

It sounds like the USB port on the Zero has been damaged.

Try setting up an SD card that will let you log in through ssh over the wireless connection, then get the output from `dmesg`. If there's a hardware problem, we might see error messages about it.

[charliebitme]

I think the Pi Girl Zero comes without wireless, so I don't have a wireless board connected. Typically I would ssh via usb, since that's not working I'm not quite sure what to do.

I did figure out where the short was coming from in my original micro->usb cable wiring. Surprisingly enough the regular sized female USB adapter itself had a short in it. I replaced the female adapter with another I have for one of my spare PowerBoosts and now the short is gone. I was able to confirm this by testing the cable on another zero i have.

Unfortunately if the Pi Zero itself is damaged I wont be able to salvage anything from this build at all. I don't have a heating station so prying the pi zero and its 40 soldered connections away from the bonnet would be impossible, at least for me. I could probably get them apart but it would not be pretty.

[adafruit_support_mike]

Removing dual pin header isn't as hard as it seems, you just have to be willing to scrap the header itself.

For tools, you need a hot soldering iron, a steel pin (something like a heavy sewing needle) small enough to fit through the holes in the PCB, and some flux.

Pin header conducts heat well, so you can heat it enough to melt the solder joints at both ends of the pin. The plastic spacer that holds the pins together is soft at those temperatures, so once all the solder melts, you can poke the pin down through the upper PCB. You want your iron hot enough that the pin comes free in 10-15 seconds, because heating a joint for too long will eventually delaminate the copper around the holes, and you want flux to keep the molten solder clean and conducting heat well.

The process is fairly simple once you've done it a few times: flux the joint, put the tip of your steel probe (which won't stick to the molten solder) on the tip of the header pin and push down gently, touch your iron to the joint itself to melt it, then stay there for a few seconds. When the solder melts, the header pin will be floating in a liquid bearing, so pushing it down will take very little effort. The goal is to poke the header pin all the way through the upper PCB so that joint is no longer a mechanical connection between the boards.

Once you've pushed all the pins through the upper PCB, there will still be a web of solder holding the upper board in place, but you can crack that loose with a bit of gentle prying.

Once the boards are separated, you can pull the header pins from the lower PCB one by one. Then you can clean the holes with solder wick and a solder sucker, wash off all the flux (use plenty, it's cheap and 'too much' is way easier to fix than 'too little'), and the board will be ready to go again.

[charliebitme]

This is a weekend project that has turned into a several weekend project.

Its up and running, all the buttons work, I did everything right as far as I can tell. Sorry but there's no way I'm gonna pry this thing apart.

I'm not gonna waste another Pi Zero on this build either. I spent $150 including the 3D printing on this project.

That's $150 down the drain. Now the biggest question is: do I throw this into the recycling bin, or in with the regular garbage? :-(

[charliebitme]

On the bright side I learned something new:

1: There's this stuff called "flux," apparently I need to have it.

2: Check components when they arrive when possible before assembling any kit or project. If I'd checked the usb port on the Pi Zero before soldering it all together I could have swapped it out with one that worked.

Thanks for all the help though. I did order some flux just now so maybe after a few more days I'll have the energy to try what you suggested. I didnt have the heart to throw the thing away yet.

[adafruit_support_mike]

Don't throw the board away. If you don't feel confident working on it now, keep it and come back to it later.

As you get more practice and your skills develop, you'll find that things that used to seem way over your head no longer look like such a big deal. That's one of the ways we all notice our progress.

[pandadeath]

Hi, I had an issue where the emulator would load and I could navigate, but after turning off and back on again, I got only the white screen. I reloaded the IMG on the sd card and it worked just fine after.