As it says in the title the micro USB has worked itself loose. I’ve been doing a lot of dev the last couple of weeks so it’s been in my bag and I’ve been unplugging the USB cable a lot and it worked it’s way loose. It just snapped off altogether.
Any ideas? I pretty much can’t dev at this point can I?
Sorry you had some bad luck man. I’m paranoid about these kinds of things and noticed it takes quite alot of force to unplugged the micro USB cable so I do it very gentle. Half the time I just leave the small cable plugged in and just unplug the full sized USB end. I know my worries could be reality now. I’ll have to be extra careful. Also @jonne what is the empty spot on the board to the right of the USB port for?
Not to make your paranoia worse but I think part of the problem was leaving the micro USB connector plugged in while it was in my bag. I can’t be sure of that though, so take it with a pinch of salt.
I have the same problem with both Pokittos I ordered. My son used it a handful of times to charge and program. The first board I looked at and saw the lack of solder. Before I could get the second one to compare and add solder, he was using it and now that port is loose (loose but still works)!
So far, he loves it. I got them for him for Christmas and he’s been playing with them since, even sneaking out of bed to play and program.
I wasn’t complaining, just explaining. We know this is an open-source, first-run type of project. There’s a learning curve when it comes to things like this–especially with 2 people running the show.
the reference pad design for the connector as provided by manufacturer was not good. It omitted the additional pads that solder the body of the connector to the pcb. These have been added to the latest rev
solder paste was thin on the board edges as it was applied manually. The panel (=4 boards) flexed under pressure, leaving too much paste in the middle (remember the button shorts we had?) and too little on the edges (=usb connector) resulting in a weak mechanical hold. Daniel now has an expensive paste printer (since December) that eliminates this issue.
These both have been since fixed and we have not had this issue with later builds. Any boards with broken USB have been and will be replaced.
Well, after securing the usb port, I think it might have been damaged when it first came loose. I can’t seem to keep a stable connection, the orange led goes on and off when the cable wiggles.
OK, having looked closely, there were loose connections on the actual pins and one of the pads had came off completely. Probably from the force of plugging in the usb cable when the two side pads weren’t connected. So I carefully removed the usb port and reconnected it nice and straight. I don’t recommend this to anyone who is new to soldering, it is very small and difficult, I had to remove the down button just to be able to get into it.
Anyway, either that missing pad wasn’t needed or there was still enough of it left to complete the connection as it seems that the USB port is working correctly. However, the large pad on the left came off during the process, so it’s only secured on one side.
[edit] Nope, the second time I plugged in the cable, the whole thing came off, ripped all of the solder pads off completely.
I assume that there are no other contacts on the board for the USB?
Might be worth investing in these magnetic snap-on / snap-off USB cables (as mentioned on the Arduboy community) for our Pokittos, to avoid putting stress on the surface-mounted connector!
those magsafe like conectors are cool. i wish we could just avoided micro usb all together
usb-c is kinda nice if theres ever a large revision
though i wonder if QI (wireless charging) could be used for programming and charging