protoshield problems

Development Boards Arduino
1

Hello all,

I am not sure if this is the proper place to post this, as I am new here.

I just put together a protoshield for netduino/arduino, and it “seems” everything is working, BUT it create a shortcircuit with the 5 volts pins.

What I mean is that both leds are working, reset is working (did not try the other button), nothing happens if I wire 3.3 volts and ground, and all other pins can be wired to the matching pin on the arduino without any problem.

To be a bit more clear, when I plugged the shield on the arduino for the first time, I saw I had no leds on, on the arduino board. To try to see what was wrong, I wired each pin individually from the arduino to the shield, and everything is fine until I wire the 5 volt pin. I looked as thoroughly as I could, and do not see any of my soldering touching another one, so I am a bit lost, mostly because this is my very first attempt at electronic soldering, and I it as carefully as I could. I took pictures, but have no ideas how I could attach one here.

How should I do to isolate where the problem is? I am familiar with debugging a program, but not a board!

Thanks for your help,

Bernard.

2

Bernard,

I suggest you start by disconnecting the Protoshield from the Arduino. Then connect one wire from an ohmmeter to the 5V pin and go around the Protoshield, touching each of the other pins with the other wire from the ohmmeter, looking for ones with ~0 Ω resistance. Once you find such pin(s), follow their circuits to your short to the 5V pin.

Happy Hunting,

Eric

3

I’m sitting here with the same problem on my un-assembled protoshield kits and I’ve traced a lot of leads back to +5v that should be connected to ground (according to the schematic). I checked the Eagle files and the board layout definately shows them shorted to +5v instead of ground. I think the latest batch of these ProtoShields are defective.