sudomod

Out of curiosity...have you wired your switch correctly? I noted a similar issue when i wires mine incorrectly late / early into a morning.

OKAY! So this thing is finally going!

initial problem was that when the power was on with the black screen, I would get 2.55v. if I pushed the start button, for some odd reason I would get the white screen and everything would jump to 3.5v. After much greif and testing, I decided to jump back to square one and move on from there. Decided to reflow the GPIO pins and despite having continuity previously, this little guy is booting up every time now!

Lesson: double, triple, quadruple check the solder joints. My guess was the GND pin was not getting quite enough contact. enough to fool me on my initial test, but not enough to work when everything was hooked up.

Now I have one final little issue. My start button is no longer working. Reflowed the joint countless times but still not working. Can I simply run a jumper wire from the GPIO to the test pad?

Check the button for continuity, basically the left or right 2 pads then pres the button. If there is continuity then reflow the pads or solder a wire to the test pad on the bottom if there isn't continuity then you have a bad button and I can send you one to replace it.

Helder wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:15 pm

Check the button for continuity, basically the left or right 2 pads then pres the button. If there is continuity then reflow the pads or solder a wire to the test pad on the bottom if there isn't continuity then you have a bad button and I can send you one to replace it.

So checked the pads, multimeter is showing continuity as soon as I touch them to the pads before even pressing the button. It's reading huge fluctuating numbers so I'm possibly doing it wrong? I do have a second button PCB so I can switch the buttons if need be.

Also, just swapped start buttons from my other board, no go. Thinking I bridged a pin possibly, considering the only thing I did to go from having a working to not working start button was re-flow the connectors. Attempted to fix this but does not seem to be working.

Assuming you haven't bridged some neighboring pins, one option you have is to attach a thin wire from the GPIO pinhole that you can't get good continuity on to the test pad for the corresponding button.

wermy wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:17 pm

Assuming you haven't bridged some neighboring pins, one option you have is to attach a thin wire from the GPIO pinhole that you can't get good continuity on to the test pad for the corresponding button.

Just gave that a shot for the second time. No go BUT! I tested for continuity with the pi running, and every time I touched it with the multimeter the start menu would pop up, effectively bridging the connection like the button should. There's no way the start button from both boards would be bad would it? Unless it's potentially a voltage problem?

Sir_Holland wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:46 pm

wermy wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:17 pm

Assuming you haven't bridged some neighboring pins, one option you have is to attach a thin wire from the GPIO pinhole that you can't get good continuity on to the test pad for the corresponding button.

Just gave that a shot for the second time. No go BUT! I tested for continuity with the pi running, and every time I touched it with the multimeter the start menu would pop up, effectively bridging the connection like the button should. There's no way the start button from both boards would be bad would it? Unless it's potentially a voltage problem?

Okay, I think voltage is the problem. Getting .6v from the start button, and 3.1 from the select button. I'm thinking I need to run jumper wires to solve this problem. Question is, where should I be running these wires from? The 3.3v on the controller PCB and the GND on the button PCB?

From the GPIO solder holes to the test pad Start, you don't mess with voltages unless you want to ruin things further.

Helder wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 07, 2017 6:04 am

From the GPIO solder holes to the test pad Start, you don't mess with voltages unless you want to ruin things further.

Point taken.

I actually got it running in the final hours of the night. Added a ground to the start button and it literally solved all my problems, it works great now!

I want to say thank you everyone so much for the help! I know it's been a bit of a headache for you guys to help everyone that's been having teething issues with their builds, but it's been an immense help. I went from having minor electrical experience from the automotive world to soldering boards and working with more intricate electronics. Love the project and love to see what other crazy things you guys come up with.