Shorted Out MintyPi

[CrazyChicken]

Hey everyone, so I'm completely new to working with electronics so you'll have to forgive me if I make some very obvious beginner mistakes.

With that said I did put together a cheap electronic clock from Amazon before doing this project to give me some practice with the soldering iron.

So here's what I got done before I shorted out my project like an idiot. Yesterday I soldered the RaspberryPi to the MintyPi board. After I got the solders all flat and tested with the multimeter I moved onto the screen. I a hard time with the screen because my cut too much off of one corner but after some finagling and patience I got it to work. Went ahead setup the SD card, booted it up and everything worked. After I got all that done I called it a day because I had to borrow a drill from my friend to do the tin and start the other half.

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Now here we are today. I drilled the holes, setup the buttons, soldered the sound card the way the tutorial showed, rigged up the power switch, installed the screen and all that. Here's where the problem started. I tested out the MintyPi away from the tin and the battery with the sound card and speaker soldered. That's when I noticed I was having issues with the sound. So I was checking the solders and seeing what might be causing it. Had no luck. So I decided to go ahead and solder it up the rest of the way and see if maybe that would have some effect. Flipped the switch and there was no effect. Okay no big deal let me just plug it in red light on power board comes on... flip the switch, still no effect.

Here is where I screwed up and immediately realized it. I had the board and screen sitting on the tin/battery assembly before putting electric tape on it. Then I plugged the power into the RaspberryPi instead of the power board, saw a puff of smoke, noticed the battery "DONE" light was on and then realized I screwed up. After that I desoldered the wires from the battery/tin assembly and plugged in the MintyPi to see if it was still working. And now it's only showing the backlight on the screen.

Pictures:
Here's the battery/tin assembly after I desoldered it from the MintyPi.

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This shows the "DONE" light being on after I shorted something out.

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Here is the MintyPi removed from the battery assembly.

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Here it is showing the backlight.

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Here are some close ups of the soundcard.

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Here is a close up of the back of the MintyPi.

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And here is a picture of my cheap multimeter that I kinda know how to use.

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A few notes:
-I'm pretty sure I bought the wrong gauge of wire. I had the same wire that was mentioned in the build video but I think I might have changed that somehow last minute in my Amazon cart.
-I don't know very much about how to use a multimeter. Especially because a lot of online tutorials show the more high end ones. I figured out checking the resistance and the voltage but I don't really know what all the options for each one means.
-I'm sure my solders are horrendous just from looking at some of the other projects on here. Let me know if they are so horrendous they might be part of the problem.

Here are my questions for you guys that have much more experience then me.
-Is it possible to use my cheap multimeter to find out what might be shorted out?
-If possible how can I do that?


Thanks for reading any help is appreciated.

[CrazyChicken]

Slight update:

So I went back and decided to test a few more things before calling it a night because I would be awake thinking about them otherwise.

I plugged the MintyPi into my TV and it booted up but it would shut off somewhat sporadically. After testing it again with my 2.4" screen I found it does work just a booting issue. I found out I was using the wrong gauge I had them backwards and for some reason didn't check until now. The Red/Black cables are 26 Gauge and the variety of colors are 20 gauge... Realizing this I redid the sound card wires and soldered it to the other speaker. The sound still doesn't work. I think I must have broke my soundcard or maybe a software issue? The sound card did work with headphones. After some more testing for some reason the RaspberryPi isn't shutting of nearly as randomly as it was before, no clue why. Glad I narrowed this down I was worried I might have messed up my screen.

This still leaves the battery/tin. The battery must have been what got shorted out. So here is my question to you guys who have much more experience then myself. Since the DONE light is permanently on does this mean the power board is shot or is it the battery?

[Helder]

Might be the board but only way to know is use another one. My board only lights up when I have it plugged in to the USB other than that it goes off. Also use a different image host like postimg.org as the images are not showing up.

[CrazyChicken]

Also use a different image host like postimg.org as the images are not showing up.

Will do, that's strange they didn't show up.

[dryja123]

You're going to want to shorten up some of the exposed wire and use less solder. Looking at the soldering on the microlipo you have a lot of exposed wire that can come in contact with something, or eachother, and short.

Now that everything is pulled out of the case use your multimeter and check your voltage and continuity on power and ground. If you're getting ample power and the Pi isn't reacting it could be fried.