[ROCKBLOCK 9603N] Short in VCC. I'm looking for Technical Support.

Other Miscellaneous
1

Hi there. I’ve bought 5 ROCKBLOCK 9603N boards from Sparkfun. I’ve got 2 running right, but the third one died after a couple of days of use.

I’m using them connected direct to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W like this:

Raspberry 9603N

5V → 8. 5VIn

GND → 10. GND

RX (GPIO15) → 6. TX

TX (GPIO14) → 1. RX

The Raspberry is powered by a LM2596 DC-DC converter module that is connected to a datalogger that has a switchable 12v output that turns the device on every 2 hours. After a couple of days of testing i stopped receiving data. I checked it and the DC-DC converter was off and warm and i tought that it has died, but then i realized the ROCKBLOCK was the problem. Using a multimeter i did a continuity check and found that VCC is shorted to GND. The board seems to be perfect at sight (nothing external shorting it).

I hope you can help me. Thanks in advance. And please tell me if i should be contacting Ground Control instead.

2

Do you mind sharing some close-up photos of the board in question?

3

TS-Russell:
Do you mind sharing some close-up photos of the board in question?

Sure.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ll0bupnh0u8k … hSkFa?dl=0

Tell me if you need more.

4

No, that’s fine…I was suspecting some type of damage (there is one scratch maybe from shipping damage?) - Was it purchased from us? If so head over to www.sparkfun.com/returns (contact vendor if purchased elsewhere) and we’ll get ya squared away