microSD fails to initialize with Arduino Due and Sparkfun mi

Development Boards Arduino
1

Hi,

I’m trying to interface my Sparkfun microSD with my Arduino Due. I had quite a few problems with it so I tried to use this simple program with it but it fails → http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/CardInfo . The following message appears in the serial monitor: “initialization failed. Things to check:…”

The code doesn’t work off the bat and I had to add the SPI header line. → #include <SPI.h>

I tried it with an Arduino UNO too but that fails as well. My microSD card is a 2GB card formated into FAT32. I also changed the CS to 8 as I am using a Sparkfun microSD shield.

The quickstart guide from Sparkfun instructed me to solder the headers onto the shield, but I am currently using the shield without the headers soldered on, to test it. How likely is it that this is the issue?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

2

Not soldering the headers will cause problems. Most likely, you have a pin or 2 not making contact. Once you correct those, then you will have others doing the same. Solder the headers, it’s not that hard. You can remove the headers if you need to down the road.

3

Thank you very much for the advice. I reformatted the card to FAT (aka FAT16), and soldered the headers onto the shield. But I’m still getting an error for initialization.

I’ve attached my photos of the soldering job. Did I mess it up?

[

[](http://postimg.org/image/fqr1tuy2r/)](http://postimg.org/image/okhyayl1f/)

4

A) Looks like a terrible soldering job. Likely one of those connections is failing horribly.

B) Can learn a lot from one of the many thousands of tutorials out there.