Did I trash my DL40?

Archive
1

It might be a sad day. My DL40 is no longer working and I have made too many changes to know what went wrong, though I am pretty sure I can guess :slight_smile:

What changed:

  1. Upgraded my Spider to the latest 4.2 RC3 Firmware
  2. I soldered header pins to the DL40

Right, I am 99% sure I caused a problem by soldering the header pins. So my question is has anyone test the DL40 flash process on the new firmware (hey, maybe I get lucky and it is a firmware issue). Currently it gets stuck when trying to connect to the module to flash the module, the flash application is blocked on the read from the serial port. Prior to soldering the header pins and the firmware upgrade I had flashed the device multiple times.

Assuming that I trashed the device by overheating it when soldering the header pins, what is the right way to safely solder the header pin to a device like this. I am no expert at soldering, in fact soldering the headers to the extender and to my NewHaven LCD display was the first time I had touched a soldering iron in nearly 20 years so any advice no matter how obvious would probably be helpful.

2

soldering is unlikely to have caused this kind of issue - most modern chips are VERY heat tolerant.

More likely is a solder joint where you’ve got a bridge between important pins. If you think it’s dead, you have nothing to lose right, so unsolder the pins (use desoldering wick if you have it, otherwise the finest multi-strand copper wire you have) and see if that makes sad face turn happy.

3

@ Brett - Thanks for the response. I did take a multimeter and tested each of the pins (1-2, 2-3, 3-4 etc.) for a short after soldering the headers and then I inspected it with a magnifying glass, I repeated this when the device did not work so I have some degree of confidence that it is not a short between the pins. But as you say, I have nothing to loose so I might as well desolder the headers and see what happens.

It is good to know that the chips are very heat tolerant. Thanks again.

4

@ taylorza - Removing the headers should be the last thing you try, as you can easly cause damage, what type of headers have you used?

5

I agree. Unless you have hot air station removing these with just an iron is a big headache.

6

@ Davef - I used single row straight header. I picked them up while on a trip to the Us at Fry’s. The look very much like these from mouser
http://eu.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=78511-236virtualkey64910000virtualkey649-78511-236

I also retested everything and I cannot find anything obvious wrong, but I am no expert so “obvious” is a relative term. Damn, I wish this was just a stray pointer somewhere, now that I can deal with :slight_smile:

7

It has been my experience that a broken trace is just as likely as a short, due to the tiny traces used on modern PCBs, so if you cant find a short look for an open circuit, and they arnt so obvious. Sometimes they can occur on multi-layer boards due to heat and delamination.

8

OK, so I have inspected the board under a magnifying glass and I do see a slight bubble near two of the pins, they are about 5 pins apart. Since the pins are not connected anyway, would a open connection near these pins be an issue? Sure I would not get any signal on the pin, but the board should still function. Is my thinking correct?

9

An open circuit will not stop uC core activity, as long as the uC or something connected is not expecting data via those inputs/outputs, unless its a power issue. I dont know if the DL40 is a multi layer PCB. I have seen open circuit traces on top of a PCB due to soldering. Have you cleaned all the flux off from the solder joints and surrounding areas? You need to do this with an alchol, then take a really good look in good light.

EDIT: Look all over the PCB for shorts as hot solder can fly when the flux get hot.

10

I did not clean the flux, I will need to get some alcohol, I will do that first thing in the morning and let you know the outcome. I did check the power, I measured the 5 and 3.3v pins when the board was connected at least the pins seem to be getting power, I do not know about the uC.

Thanks for all the input.

11

Unfortunately still no luck. It seems my only recourse is going to be to get a couple of new modules and try again.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to help me. Based on the replies I am hopeful that the uC is still fine and the soldering just caused an issue with something on the board. That does answer one question/concern I had and that is that the uC are heat tolerant. To that end I will accept @ Brett’s response as the answer.

12

It is confirmed, I just received 2 new DL40s and the update is working perfectly. So yes, I trashed my DL40.

13

Ahhh, the old magic smoke…must admit i have done that more than once :smiley:
Now you have your new DL40’s i will be very interested to see what you do with them.
Crack on :slight_smile:

14

I got 2 just in case I get adventurous and decide to solder headers again :slight_smile:

15

hahahaha - go for it

16

I am here to pat myself on the back :slight_smile:

I soldered headers onto one of my new DL40 and this time the hardware survived the iron and my clumsy skills.

1 Like
17

@ taylorza - Well done fella :slight_smile:

18

@ Justin - Cheers, thanks for the support… one down one to go.

19

I never threw that “trashed” DL40 away and it seems it was a good thing. The programmer interface seems to be damaged, but now that I have the J-Link I can program the DL40 directly from my PC, so now I have an extra DL40 to play with.