Horrific soldering or something in my code?

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NewtonBIV

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Greetings!

So after totally frying my 3.2 and audio shield I decided to try it all again with a 4.0 replacement and shield (i got the audio shield that is for the 4.0). This time I was in and out super fast realizing that it helps if you use a soldering iron that actually heats up and melts the solder quickly. As you can see by these photos, I'm definitely no Da Vinci of the soldering world and have likely zero innate talent when it comes to melting metal so that it attaches to small components in an elegant fashion.

Still, i'm able to get blinky and all the basic initial examples to compile and actually work no problem still so I know at least I didn't fry the thing. When I run the audio->hardware testing->sdcardtest though and click onto the serial monitor, it runs the sd initializer and returns this message:

SD card is not connected or unusable :-(

Is there anything else besides simply continuing to solder and resolder all the joins together that may help me here? Thanks!
 
My guess is it is simply the differences between T3.x and T4.x on which pins do what on the Audio board and the like:
That is if you look at the Audio adapter page: https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy3_audio.html

It looks like the sketch defaults to:
Code:
// Use these with the Teensy Audio Shield
#define SDCARD_CS_PIN    10
#define SDCARD_MOSI_PIN  7
#define SDCARD_SCK_PIN   14

Note: the Audio page looks sort of screwed up on pin numbers, but
If it were me I would try changing to:
Code:
// Use these with the Teensy Audio Shield
#define SDCARD_CS_PIN    10
#define SDCARD_MOSI_PIN  11
#define SDCARD_SCK_PIN   13
I don't see it being explicitly set but in both cases I believe MISO is 12.
 
Thank you sir! Also I apologize up front for any lack of couth or knowledge around how to communicate in these things they freaked me out like a month after Facebook became big and i've avoided them ever since until now by necessity.

I will try the suggestion! I'm assuming you really do mean only a change in the code and not that i'll need to actually go in and change which pins are physicallyconnected to each other correct? I have yet to actually try and desolder anything and have no tools for this yet. Seems like in this case it's just changing which pins we are telling the microcontroller will be configured for the audio shield to work properly. Hoping this is correct but let me know if not i'll simply resolder the whole thing again this project has become a labor of sheer will power and brutish stubborness at this point and will get done some how i tell you.

Will let you know thanks again!
 
My guess is it is simply the differences between T3.x and T4.x on which pins do what on the Audio board and the like:
That is if you look at the Audio adapter page: https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy3_audio.html

It looks like the sketch defaults to:
Code:
// Use these with the Teensy Audio Shield
#define SDCARD_CS_PIN    10
#define SDCARD_MOSI_PIN  7
#define SDCARD_SCK_PIN   14

Note: the Audio page looks sort of screwed up on pin numbers, but
If it were me I would try changing to:
Code:
// Use these with the Teensy Audio Shield
#define SDCARD_CS_PIN    10
#define SDCARD_MOSI_PIN  11
#define SDCARD_SCK_PIN   13
I don't see it being explicitly set but in both cases I believe MISO is 12.

Well thank you so much for the idea, and it did lead me to actually change the numbers a couple times to basically match various functions on the chart like to audio data or to the mem chip. no matter what I always get the same message.I went to the SD->cardinfo sketch even and THAT one as well returned basically an error message that it couldn't read the card and to maybe try making sure it was seated properly, etc. I'll attempt a re-solder tomorrow and don't get me wrong there is something very therapeutic in soldering so I quite like doing it, even at a primitive almost barbaric level, it's just frustrating not having a voltmeter to check each joint to just make sure everything SHOULD be working just fine. For all I know right now my computer brain simply thinks I'm telling it to look at maybe the 11th pin and then stop before throwing some random static and noise at it.
 
In the first photo of the audio shield, pin 20 doesn't seem to have much, or any, solder on it. It is the LRCLK pin for the audio so it needs to have a good contact.
Along the back row, there appear to be several solder blobs:
between Gnd and pins 0 and 1
between pins 4 and 5
between pins 11 and 12.
They may all be OK since it is hard to tell from the photo, but it would be worth checking them carefully.

Pete
 
In the first photo of the audio shield, pin 20 doesn't seem to have much, or any, solder on it. It is the LRCLK pin for the audio so it needs to have a good contact.
Along the back row, there appear to be several solder blobs:
between Gnd and pins 0 and 1
between pins 4 and 5
between pins 11 and 12.
They may all be OK since it is hard to tell from the photo, but it would be worth checking them carefully.

Pete

Hello Pete! Thank you for the candor and observation. Actually very encouraging since it sounds like there is a solid chance that it's just the unsat solder job which is obviously fixable and without spending more. I will go over all of them since it sounds like blobs are kind of a no bueno and honestly there is a ton on there even outside the zones you mention. Off to the workshop to put these notes to the test thanks again!After doing this I will try both with the new pin suggestions and as the default original to see if that also affects the results.
 
After I've soldered pins to the audio board or Teensy, I always grab my multimeter and do a continuity check between all adjacent pins to make sure none of them are shorted.

Pete
 
And note again if you are trying to use the example sketch you mentioned, you need to edit the sketch to have the pin numbers in the software match the hardware pins.

As noted, which pins are used for the Audio hardware is different on the T4 than is on the T3.x
 
Absolutely thanks! KurtE I was kind of going off the page online that gives the altering 'shareable' pins side by side with the teensy 3.x and was wondering why you kept the CS as 10 but now I see you were simply going off of the printout sheet. Thanks! still didn't work haha but at least now it will after fixing the soldering.

el_supremo - got a multimeter now (should have started with that in the very first place don't know why i didn't) - so how do you check all the pins, do you just complete a circuit with each one making sure there is voltage or do you need to take into consideration the ac vs dc current or what voltage and stuff like that?Sorry, again im ssuuuuuuupper new to this stuff. I can code pretty good, and i know music software like the back of my hand but no one makes this one little thing I simply need which is why i started this. now i'm hooked i think for life.
 
Dang it! So I got ahold of a multimeter and mr supremo was right, pin 20 had zero voltage going through it! Pin 15 also had a questionable connection. so I added some to 20 and smoothed it out, along with a little smoothing on 15 and voila -charge now goes through every pin when I touch the black lead to grnd.

Only problem now, it still gives me the same message! KurtE - I even tried it both ways this time and I see what you mean when you look at the printout, i had been getting those numbers off the 'shareable pins'section on the website before your numbers made me realize you were going off the printout. Still though what in the world else could it be? I haven't even gotten IN to the crazyness with the clocks that I doubt is even possible then there is the seamless looping, i just need to at this point select a file off the sd card and play it. wonder what else there could beto change? THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR THE KIND WORDS AND HELP
 
My multimeter has a continuity checker.
multimeter_continuity.jpg
If you place the probes on two pins that are shorted, the meter beeps. Otherwise it is silent. That makes it easy to check a lot of adjacent pins because you don't have to keep looking at the meter to read the resistance.
This should be done before you apply power to the device.
If your meter doesn't have a continuity tester, measure the resistance between each pair of pins. It should read a very low value.
Perhaps someone with more EE experience/qualifications than me can chime in with corrections/additions.

Pete
 
Ditto on the continuity check, always a good idea. Also, always check resistance between ground and power.

A couple of things that could help your soldering.
- Use a flux pen on the pads.
- Apply a tiny blob of solder to the tip of the iron before holding it against the pin - that makes for better heat conduction.
- Apply the solder to the pin, not the iron.
- If your pcb was made with HASL (hot air solder leveling), you can see the pin is ready to apply solder when the HASL layer melts.
- Be initially sparing on feeding the solder, it's easy to over do it.
- I set up so that when I am soldering one pin, the iron is close the next pin and thus pre-heating it.
- Use a magnifier to inspect the solder joints and redo any that don't look good.
 
Wow i'm loving all of this info. I've always tried not applying the solder directly to the iron and absolutely use the heated pin in order to trap the solder to the copper, but gosh i seem to keep getting irons that don't get hot enough or something. Anyway, i've gotten a desoldering gun and am simply doing the whole thing over doing the continuity check right from the get go AND using the new pin configurations. If that all doesn't work then i'm blaming Paul in the note :) -kidding Paul you make amazing products!
 
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Howdy folks! Well certainly getting a little better at soldering, I even redid my adafruit fx sound board trigger as well as the tiny robot badge I got to put together for my son (both eyes light up now!) it's sooo much more fulfilling when you can just desolder your mistakes. I also double checked every pin bottom and top, solid current through every single one, then I ran the sdcard sketch both with the default mosi, cs, and spi configuration and then with the different number pins for the teensy 4.0. I even tried reformatting the sd card, THEN trying the card in an osepp sd card shield I had triedbefoe finding the teensy. NOTHING still. I can run the first tutorial example and it beeps which was exciting, but running the second one I got the same 'unable to read sd card' message in the serial monitor.

will begin again tomorrowuntil thisget's up and running. have a great night everyone thanks for all your help!
 
Magnifiers are a bit hard on my eyes, so:

One thing that realy helped me in my early manual soldering tests was a cheap video microscope.

They can be purchased for ~$40 with 1080p video screens, and earn rave reviews for fine soldering work. I was even able to manually solder 8SOIC chips!
 
I have both - microscope and several magnifiers. I find the magnifiers easier to use but that's a personal thing.

SOICs are a piece of cake. Try TSSOPs, LCCs, and so on by hand with an iron. The secret, for me anyway, is lots of solder wick.

PCB V100.jpg
 
YES!

Wow, Alex Beroza's 'snowflake' (great title haha I love it) began playing over my tiny speaker and I felt so much joy and ecstasy.

SUCCESS THANK YOU ALL!
 
YES!

Wow, Alex Beroza's 'snowflake' (great title haha I love it) began playing over my tiny speaker and I felt so much joy and ecstasy.

Ok there is absolutely no way you can keep me from blowing every cent i have on at least 2 items i've read about on this thread. Video Microscope and either an SOIC, TSSOP, or an LCC HAHA.

SUCCESS THANK YOU ALL!
 
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