Blocked through holes on protoshield PCB

[slewfoot303]

Hi, I purchased one of your starter kits on Wednesday and it arrived yesterday afternoon - I'm so excited, thank you so much for your prompt shipping. I started going through the Arduino tutorials this morning and then ran right out to my local electronics store to pick up supplies to start putting together the protoshield. In the process of assembling the protoshield I realized that several of the holes (in this case the holes for the male headers) are blocked for some reason - I'm not sure if it's something I did or if the board came that way. I was hoping you had some advice for clearing those so that I can continue assembling the protoshield - whatever is in the hole doesn't seem to be solder and doesn't seem to be burned around the hole from soldering the female headers. Picture is attached, you can see from the shadow the four (actually, probably 5) holes that are blocked.

Any assistance or direction you can provide would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance for your time.

[adafruit]

its a little hard to see, can you describe what it is thats plugging it? perhaps a photo straight down?

[slewfoot303]

This was the best picture I could manage getting in so close. The light from the flash makes the "material" blocking the through holes appear like it might be part of the PCB itself, but beats me what might be in there. Would love to know how to get it out though.

Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated.

[hlantz]

That looks very odd, almost as if the PCB hasn't been drilled right. It's a bit hard to tell, but from the larger picture it looks like the holes in the middle area of the card hasn't been drilled through either? (The longer bands marked 5V and GND on the top, for example.) I guess it could be due to the exposure of the image; if you get a chance before the Adafruit support people wake up, could you post a shot of the card flat (or as flat as the soldering will allow you), with the top facing up, on a dark surface?

[slewfoot303]

Yeah, looks like the PCB didn't get drilled all the way through in a couple of places the best I can tell, or some kind of resin or coating fell into those specific holes and wasn't cleaned out well enough. I have a set of dental tools here, was able to clean a little of the material out of one of the holes and whatever in there is definitely colored green... Didn't want to dig too deep in there 'cause I'm not sure if it'd ruin the board, but I suppose it's not going to do me a ton of good in this state anyway.

[adafruit]

Yeah, looks like the PCB didn't get drilled all the way through in a couple of places the best I can tell, or some kind of resin or coating fell into those specific holes and wasn't cleaned out well enough. I have a set of dental tools here, was able to clean a little of the material out of one of the holes and whatever in there is definitely colored green... Didn't want to dig too deep in there 'cause I'm not sure if it'd ruin the board, but I suppose it's not going to do me a ton of good in this state anyway.

wow, if that were a BANNED ticket! we haven't seen this many times at all, we'll send out a replacement, you're welcome to keep that one and tinker around - please send a new note to [email protected] and we'll send you out another one immediately.

cheers,
adafruit

[slewfoot303]

Sweet, then I'm heading to the casinos - maybe today is my lucky day! Thanks so much for your prompt replies, I'll send an email and look forward to the new protoshield.