Pico Crumble Wiring

[aminuz]

Hi guys. I just received a batch of parts in the post and everything is looking like it'll fit where I intended. The only issue I have is that I feel like I've totally overestimated the size of the Pico Crumble. This thing is tiny.

I genuinely don't know how I'm going to be able to solder the pads cleanly, there's less than a millimetre of space between each of the pads. Is there something I'm missing? I feel like I'm going to slip once and then the entire card will be ruined when solder inadvertently connects two pads.

Does anyone have any advice for me other than the obvious of taking my time with it? For example do I need a particularly fine tipped soldering iron?

[rlobrecht]

Pre-tin your wires. Don't connect your card to power until you've inspected all your solder joints, visually and with a multi-meter. A fine tip to your solder iron would be a good idea.

[aminuz]

Pre-tin your wires. Don't connect your card to power until you've inspected all your solder joints, visually and with a multi-meter. A fine tip to your solder iron would be a good idea.

Thanks so much for that, I should have remembered that pre-tinning would be a far better way of making sure I don't use too much solder than just trying to have doctor-steady hands and taking my time. I'll buy a bigger spool of wire than I need so I can trial and error until each wire is perfect before I connect it.

[jbkuma]

A lot of beginners make the mistake of leaving too much wire exposed. You should only remove enough to make your connection. I highly recommend watching the excellent videos on the TCSS youtube channel for inspiration and better understanding.

[Silver Serpent]

I always pre-tin my wires, and THEN I'll snip the exposed wire down to length. It's easier for me than to try to pre-tin a teeny tiny section of wire.

[Jenny]

There's also the possibility of using electrical tape folded over on itself as a mask to keep solder from overrunning the place where you're working.

[aminuz]

Work in progress.

[aminuz]

Hi guys, I finished all the wiring for the sound card and tested everything with a multimeter, everything looks good. However, when I switch on the board I get everything but the sound going. The flash on clash works, the colour changing works, the av switch accent light works. But no sound.

I've tested the speaker with my phone and that's not the problem, I'm totally stumped. My joins are all clean, is there any way of checking whether I've just got a dud card?

[aminuz]

More info, when the board isn't being powered, there's no resistance between the two speaker pads. When the battery is in the holder, but the board hasn't been powered up, there's a moment of resistance before it returns to zero. When the momentary switch has been clicked once, but the blade is off (i.e standby mode, there is a moment of high resistance before steady low resistance between the pads, which remains as the blade is powered on and off. When the battery is removed, the resistance between the pads is again zero.

[rlobrecht]

Love the blue on that choke. Great color.

[aminuz]

Hah :P it looks great, I'll post photos up once it's finished, the hilt design was pretty simple but you could have a lot of fun just changing the colours of the highlight pieces. As of now, all it does is look good unfortunately.