So, I got a Pico last week, and it’s been able to be read by my laptop perfectly fine. Today, I soldered headers to it, and since then my laptop, along with any device in my house, hasn’t been able to read or detect the Pico at all. My soldering seems fine, so I don’t know if that’s the problem. I’ve tried multiple cables with no luck. If anyone has any idea on what to do, please tell me.
(This is how it looks by the way)Hey!
The Pi Pico is very good if you get the presoldered headers version - not so good if you solder them yourselves. The likely thing that may have happened is you accidentally soldered a bit of the pico that you didn’t want to as the pico is very small. The unlikely thing to have happened is a hardware error (either with the headers or the pico)
Hope this helps!
Alex
I’m not quite sure if it’s the light, but it looks like the board is scorched in a couple of places (e…g. the 7th pin down on the left hand side). It looks like you’ve a lot of flux on it too?
It might be that something was heated beyond its safe temperature during soldering. You should only need to touch the soldering iron to a pin for a few seconds to get the joint to form, if you heat the pin for too long it can cause damage.
EDIT: Also, what’s the bright dot on the bottom edge of the processor? If that’s solder on the board it could be causing a short.
It could be heat damage caused during the soldering. Or as Shoe pointed out, a little blob of solder may have fallen off of the tip of your iron. I also see something along the edge of the SOC / CPU that I don’t think should be there.
Yes, it may be possible to revive but if you do this again turn the temperature down, or just wait for the pre-soldered headers version to come back in stock.
I couldn’t find any forum rules so hopefully this is ok. If you can’t wait then sbcomponents have pre-soldered Pico’s in stock but they limit to one per customer so the P&P is relatively high if that is all you order. I’m waiting until Pimoroni have them back in stock. It states maximum of 10 per customer at the moment but I can’t see that being the case when they are back in stock. I’ll be happy if I can get two in one order.
I think at most retailers, it’s going to be like the Zero and Zero W, one per order. At least for a while anyway.
Learning to solder well can take some practice. I’ve been doing it for many many years so its easy peasy for me.
If your keen to learn that skill without worrying about messing up something important you can practice on a perf board or proto board.
One of these will do.
Mini Protoboard – Pimoroni
Or this
Adafruit Perma-Proto Breadboard PCB - 3 Pack! – Pimoroni
And something like this will give you stuff to practice with.
Explorer HAT Pro Parts Kit – Pimoroni
If the LED lights up you got it right. ;)
The pre-soldered Pico’s are back in stock.
Sorry i have been afk from the forums for a while - try buy couple of those