MiniPOV3: No lights turn on when powered on

[Jakel]

Hi adafruit,

I am requesting help on my MiniPIOV3 kit. It did not light after completing the kit and powering it on.

First, let me state, I have no electrical engineering experience and have never soldered. I have two children 5 and 7 and our family wants to join in on the maker movement. The kids were involved in every part of this kit effort except the poor soldering, which I take full responsibility for!

We used a lead free solder and a good quality iron from your store. From your tutorials I gathered that lead free is harder to work with, but with younger children I felt more comfortable with the lead free solder. After completing the kit we powered it on and none of the lights turned on. I did try another set of fresh batteries. Then, using a multimeter, I checked for continuity, by following the pcb tracings and found continuity a where, I believe, it belonged and did not identify any bridged connections. Though "not there yet" I figured I'd give you all of my information now in the case it later becomes necessary. I am using Mac OSX, a serial USB adapter from adafruit, no lights turned on at all when powered. I must confess that the last time I clumsily checked for continuity, I had powered it on and forget to turn it off. Perhaps, now I have really messed it up. Below are photos of the top and bottom of my kit. Thank you for the help.

Thanks,
David

I am attaching screen shots. When I tried to upload jpeg I got this message: The image file you tried to attach is invalid.

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[adafruit_support_bill]

Your component placement looks correct. If you can post a larger shot of the back-side, we could see more detail on the solder. (Better light would be good too - try near a window or even outside).

The battery connections are hidden by the hot-melt glue. Double-check that you have the polarity correct.

[Jakel]

Here are pictures with more light. I removed the glue from the battery connection.
Thanks!

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photo 1.JPG (284.7 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

[adafruit_support_bill]

That all looks good. Do you have a multimeter? Can you test that you are seeing ~3v where the battery wires connect?

[Jakel]

When I test with my multimeter I get more than 3V at the battery connection on the back of the pcb.

[adafruit_support_bill]

There is a greyish area between pins 6 & 7 on the processor chip. Double-check to make sure that is not a solder bridge. Other than that, I don't see anything wrong.

If that checks out OK and it still doesn't work, contact support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread and ask for a replacement MiniPOV processor chip.