I recently bought an Unicorn pHat on Amazon. I attached on my Raspberry Pi 3, but when I start the rainbow.py script nothing happens. When I run detect.py it says that my pHat is detectable, so I removed the pHat and while removing I had a short flashing of light. I pushed a little a bit on the pHat and got all lights on. After a while of try and error I managed to get the rainbow lights. Is it possible that my pHat has loose contact? Or do I miss something fundamental?
Could you possibly post a picture of your pHAT/soldering?
I did not solder it to the board. Is it necessary?
Absolutely necessary. You need to solder the (supplied) 40-pin header onto the Unicorn HAT.
The GPIO pins are square, and the holes in the PCB are round. It’s a case of literally putting a square peg into a round hole- there’s very, very little contact between the two, not nearly enough for a reliable electrical connection.
While you can kind-of make it work by lifting the pHAT gently so it contacts the GPIO pins better, it’s a much better solution to solder it.
Thanks for your help.
Hopefully I did not disgrace myself too much.
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Haha, just browse the support forums for a bit, you’ll feel much better :)
I’ve definitely used stuff unsoldered before, and levered it up against the pins for a connection. That’s the only reason I know that trick works :D
… the thing I was doing it with- a Sparkfun USB Serial breakout -then suddenly stopped working. I thought I’d broken it with my trick, so I bit the bullet and ordered a replacement. Turned out to be a faulty USB cable =/
Aha that solves my question before I even asked it! Never realised this was an issue as I had bought solderless GPIO headers separately! Thanks for the help
-DestinyDragon890
I realised earlier that it was bent and straightened it not realising the effect it would have!