Collection of stupid mistakes

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Lphillimore
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Re: Collection of stupid mistakes

Post by Lphillimore » Sat Aug 19, 2017 4:35 am

144TECH wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:44 am
Lphillimore wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:23 pm
First GBZ i built i ripped two of the volume pot pads clean off the AIO. I was new to soldering and for some reason thought i could snap them off and then resolder. 😂

Looking back I can't even believe how ridiculous that was.

Good job my first project wasn't my Kite SAIO build 😎
You forgot the gearbest screen hahah :lol:
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I screwed up a gbz case, drill got stuck in the hole, case slipped out of my hand spinning the case around while it still was on the drill lol omg.. (table drilling machine haha, used no vice :S)
:oops: :mrgreen:
Hahaha. You're right! A few early shockers. I actually messed my first case up, too. Dremmel slipped and smudged the Game Boy writing beyond repair 🙈

MrDralixx
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Re: Collection of stupid mistakes

Post by MrDralixx » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:46 pm

Hmmm.....

I have several unfinished items as well:

- PiGrrl 2. I think I have this one about done actually. I started it in early '16. I didn't have a 3D printer then, so I had someone print the case using wood filament. It sanded nicely and took stain to it. Then I applied 2 layers of clear coat to seal it. My main issue was no sound. It wasn't a deal breaker, but I had bought that stupid amplifier board (PAM8302) and they were hard to come by (for me) at the time outside of Adafruit's site. Buying from Adafruit is expensive for shipping, so I prefer to make it a worthwhile cart. ($10 to send a $3 item is insane) After putting it aside for a long time, I came back to it and found that while even Adafruit admits that the PAM8302 is a crappy amplifier board, the problem was actually the speaker had 2 sets of positive/negative connection pads and the positives had a tiny bit of solder connecting them. Solder wicked it off and applied fresh. Worked like a charm, but it still hisses horribly.

- PiGrrl Zero. (yes, I was an Adafruit fanboy for a while) The header pins I was soldering to the Pi Zero slipped while I was soldering it and I didn't notice until it was done and it left a very lopsided gap. Seems that it's ok to use tacking putty to hold electronics pieces like that together, but you should throw it out when you're done with it as it doesn't stay sticky for long. I was lousy at de-soldering at that time. I tried the solder sucker and that was a waste of money for me. I tried solder wick but it wasn't working either. I figured out, eventually, that there really isn't any flux on the stuff even if it says there is. I smeared flux on it and found it worked great then! Unfortunately, I didn't site the board properly in my helping hands vise thing and 2 of those tiny resistors broke off. This was using one of the early Zeros that was not wireless, nor did it have the camera port on it. So I'm not too concerned about it. Finally, the case design for the PiGrrl Zero was kind of lacking. Having to use an additional USB sound port seems stupid. I found the upgraded version offered on Thingiverse, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

- Minty Pi. I thought I had the LCD going pretty well as I got it all to boot up initially when it was just Helder's PCB and LCD setup with the Pi Zero soldered on. I waited a couple of weeks then for the battery monitor. I hooked that on and continued with the assembly. I even added an additional tactile switch next to the pdt switch. Fit really well there too. When I finished and booted it up, I got a black screen. It turns white if you press one of the buttons. My attempts to use an HDMI adapter and hook up to a monitor results in the same thing. I've formatted and reinstalled the image a few times with the same result. That's put on hold due to other things at the moment though.

- Monoprice Maker Select Plus. It's a rebranded Wanhao i3 Plus and a step up from the Maker Select (lcd touch screen on the front instead of the umbilical cord control unit) and it's been offline for me more than it has been online. The main problem is that I bought it as my first printer. :) Out the gate, I had an issue getting it to level. One side would be dead on and the other would be too high. And vise versa. A couple of days fiddling with and looking at it from a different angle and I realized (embarrassingly) that the x-axis arm was out of alignment. Common shipping issue as the rods can be turned when no power is applied. I corrected that by raising up and sticking 2 glue sticks under it and using that as a level to line them up correctly. Bit honestly, this thing needs more tweaking and mods than the Maker Select itself, but those were out of stock at the time, no clue when they'd get more in, re-sellers were charging twice the amount or more (it was Christmas time last year), it was on sale for almost a hundred less, and I didn't want to wait as it was my gift from most of my family members (who pooled their money, gave to my wife and had her get it, but she didn't know what to look for and asked me to keep a secret lol) I'm too stubborn to give up on it though and I know I'll have it going smoothly soon enough. I think.

The printed mods for it should be easier now as I found a bunch of Amazon gift cards that have accumulated over the past 2 years and those equaled enough to buy an MP Select Mini. That is currently sitting next to my desk until I can get to it tonight or tomorrow night as I got a glass bed made for it.

Other mistakes:

Being distracted while buying parts has been a big thing for me. I mentioned in another thread that I bought 10 PAM8403 boards by accident instead of the alternative micro lipo boards Wermy suggested. Clicking through the "others also bought these items" links and not watching which one I clicked to add to cart.

I've also gotten several lipo batteries from china that were actually quite cheap and work well, but are wrong sizes for most of the smaller projects. I also had a learning curve to figure out that china lipos have a tendency to have the black and red wires opposite of how we do.

Thinking a couple of wraps of electrical tape around helping hands alligator clips would be ok to grip a lipo battery with.

But wait! There's more!!!

j/k. That's the majority of them.

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