No sound

[Humpadilo]

I just finished my minty pi lite, and everything works great. All my soldering was good to go, checked by a multimeter. The only problem is I can’t get any sound. In the how to video, it said polarity doesn’t matter. Is this right? Or could this be the problem? Is there a setting I missed? I also downloaded the image from the how to. I can also turn the sound up and down by the function button but still can’t hear anything.

[Helder]

Either bad speaker or you damaged the solder pads on the controller or speaker. Not sure how many people solder to the inner pads of the speaker, it's the outer pads you solder to.

Other possible issue is the 3 GPIO for audio is not solid, they're DIN, BCLK, LCLK. Recheck these points to sure they're solid and redo them anyways to be sure.

[Humpadilo]

Ok. Part of the problem is that the BCLK wasn’t working. I got that one working fine now. The LCLK and DIN are working also. I still don’t get any sound. Attached is how I wired my speaker. How does the soldiering look? I’m gonna reassemble it and try to see if I messed up any settings.

[Humpadilo]

Also, I keep getting this. Every time I raise the volume it goes right back to 0. I’m not sure what that means.

[Helder]

Did you use flux when assembling the pi to the board? If so what kind of flux?

[Humpadilo]

No. I didn’t have any flux. I’m ordering some new speakers so hopefully my speakers are just bad. Is there an easy way to see if it’s the speaker?

[Mahfouz]

I’m having a similar issue, but I used no-clean flux when putting the boards together. I’ve checked the PCB to Pi connections and they’re all good, but I’m not sure if there’s a way to check connectivity between the Pi and the speaker itself—I checked connectivity between BCLK, LCLK, and DIN to the speaker and didn’t have any, but also not sure if there is supposed to be any connectivity there. All buttons and power are working, and I soldered wires to the copper pads on the speakers.

I’m building two minty pi lites and they both have the same issue with sound so I’m either unlucky and got bad speakers or making the same mistake on both builds (more likely scenario).

Any advice you can give here is welcome as I don’t know what else to test, and this is the last piece before both builds are complete.

[Helder]

If you connect them quickly yo a battery it should make a sound and often people solder them to the inner pads when it should be the outer pads.

As for no sound it has to be one of those 3 pins you mentioned, they need continuity from the pi to the Test pads. The 5v and GND pads also need proper continuity, I know you said everything else is working but are you powering through usb on the pi or through Battery?

Often people test it with usb on PI and sound doesn't work because they have a bad joint on the 5v GPIO. Testing with a game and from battery is the right way to test sound.

[Mahfouz]

Thanks for the suggestions, that did the trick! Tested the speakers directly on the battery and they were making the expected static sound. Rechecked the pins and GND was beeping but inconsistently on one end of the solder so I redid the connection there and resoldered the speakers just in case. Minty Pi Lite is now assembled, working, and making those classic 8/16-bit tunes.