First Build = Fail (but this is how we learn, right?)


 
K

KevinE

New member
Hi all, just a quick introduction. I'm an IT professional by trade but love to tinker with things as well as grill/smoke meat. So Naturally, when I came upon this website I was in heaven. Did all my research and ended up buying the kit (along with a bunch of other stuff...including a 3d printer :cool:) which came the other day. Here is where the failure started. I have done some soldering in the past, but nothing major. Spend the majority of the day soldering this thing up, plugged it in...and nothing. Started looking at my solders and noticed there were spots that I may have bridged the solder onto another component. Did my best to try and clean everything up but still no dice. At this point, I think I just need to re-order/start all over from scratch. One question, the soldering iron I purchased off Amazon is a 40 watts and gets up to 900F (with no means to control the temperature). Is this too hot? I'm thinking maybe I fried some of the components by using this iron. Being a beginner, what temp should I be soldering at?

Any advise would be appreciated. Looking forward to starting over and in the mean time I can mess with my 3d printer :)

Oh, and thanks to everyone that has made this possible. This really is some next level cool stuff!
 
If you can take closeup pictures of your board and post them here maybe someone can spot your problem(s) for you....
 
Take some pictures of the Board up close in good light, so we can see the solder and also some pics of the components. Without some sort of pic, its hard to get any ideas what would be the cause.

First though when you connected the HM to power did you try to turn the contrast until you saw a row of blocks.

If you see the rows of blocks did you set up SD card and the PI and then connect it to the HM and wait for it to program the Atmega328 chip.
 
Here is a couple of pics. The LCD side looks like it's been through the wringer. I spend some time with a plastic pic making sure none of the solder was in places it wasn't supposed to be.

Heater meter does nothing when I plug it in. I tried messing with the contrast and even used another power adapter to plug into it. I get nothing.

20150101_164618.jpg


20150101_164936.jpg
 
I do most of my soldering at about 310 C (590 F).

Posting pics would be a good start though.
 
Shake my head at myself. Yes, they are both backward. I'll try to correct and report back. Thanks Steve!
 
nice job Kevin! If electronics is more than a passing phase, I'd recommend this soldering station- We've had one on the bench since 3/2013 and it's been the favorite. Still using a weller pes51d for the leaded stuff. Meters??????? Don't ask. I have 5 I've been playing with - from a $56 amprobe, fluke 17B, fluke 107, fluke 115, fluke 87V (the loss of one prompted the amprobe & 17B), but my favorite is the UNI-T UT81B just for coolness factor - everyday it's the 87V but the 17B has the best display :)
 
D3 switch was successful. D2 Didn't make it out alive. Ordering up a new one and hoping this will bring my heater meter to life.

Thanks to all for the feedback/support.
 
If you haven't ordered already, D2 can actually be replaced with a 1N4001 you can get at radio shack for $1.50. The 1N5819 is more the ideal part to put in place there because it is slightly more efficient, but my original prototypes were all with 1N4001 diodes.
 
Also, if you don't already have them, get solder wick and a solder flux pen. Makes it easier to remove components and clean us globs of solder. A solder sucker is good to keep in your toolbox also. Good luck. If you are going to go to radio shack, they will have these items also or any other local electronics parts house or of course Amazon.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I did end up heading to Radio Shack and put in the diode. No dice. No big deal. I learned a lot in the failure that I can take with me to the next build.

One thing I didn't realize about my self is how shaky I am when trying to solder. When I do the next build, no morning cups of coffee for me :D
 
Do you have a multimeter? You should be able to determine where power is/isn't getting to. The heatermeter has quite a few components, but it's not an overly complex piece of gear. Most of the magic is in the software, not the hardware.
 
I think you are giving up way to easily... Like Steve said, dig in with a multimeter and I bet you can get it going... After you put the diodes in the right way did you get anything at all going on? If you have a multimeter you should start with the PS and make sure it is putting out 12-18VDC, then check to see that the DC-DC +5V regulator is putting out +5VDC, then check that the 3.3v regulator is putting out 3.3v. If you are missing any of these voltages that can help point in the direction of your problem(s).... all is not lost if you are willing to work at it a bit....
 
How's this from rising from the dead. So, after giving up for a couple of years, I pulled the board and pi out and tried powering from the pi....it worked!!! It. Freaking. Worked!!!! So, there is something wrong with the power to the heater meter board. But do I care? should I just power from the rasperry PI? Thoughts?
 
You want it powered from the HM board. Powering from the Pi isn't enough to do everything you need in real use. Also, don't power both the HM and Pi at the same time. Read notes about that from this wiki page. Are you using a v4.2 HeaterMeter?

There is a basic troubleshooting page here if you have a multimeter to checkout your board/build.
 
The blower wont work when you power from the rPi, so the HM would only work to monitor temps.
If it works when powered from the rPi then you probably have a bad 3.3v regulator, or the wrong part in that spot. What version HM do you have? Since you mention being a couple years old I wonder, 'cause the power supply changed a bit after HMv4.0...
At any rate, the PS on the HM board is relatively simple, you should be able to fix it up easy enough.
 
Yes, I am using version 4.2 of the board. I do have a multimeter but not real sure how to use it :confused:. I'll do some searches and see if I can figure it out.
 
First thing to do is check if you have the MCP1700-33 installed in the IC4 location (beside the ATMega below the rPi connector) that is the 3.3v regulator. The part looks just like the BS170 transistor except for the printing on the flat side of the component. It is a common mistake to put a transistor there instead of the regulator.
As for using your multimeter, you want to set it for DC Volts, connect the black lead to the GND at the power plug and use the red lead to probe. On the 3.3v regulator you should see 5v on one pin, 3.3v on another and ground on the third lead.
 
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