I’m new to this forum and hope I have postet right.
I have replaced a faulty proffieboard v2.2 and when turned on the new board emits sound and reacts to movement and I can change soundfonts, but there is no light in the neopixel blade. I think mayby I have damaged the new board soldedering, but I’d like to make sure before puchasing a new board. I made sure that there is current from BATT+ on the board to the blade connector-pins.
(It could of course also be a malfunctioning blade .but I think that’s unlikely as the old board was definetely faulty as It did not conncet to my PC and got so hot it meltet the glue that attached it when connecting it wit USB data-cable to my PC…).
I have checked Data1/ID and LED 2/3 connectons as sugested in reddit post and got no current with board turned on and emitting “blade-sound” but have alas not the best multimeter (lovest AC volt setting is 200). I have also tried to bridge LED2/3 to GND to see if the blade lights up, but I get no light in the blade. It is possible to try some of the other LED and DATA connections on the board? I’ll probable need a custom config.h for that I’ll guess, but then again if I damaged the board during soldring It migt not make a differense if all LED/DATA board connecotors are from the same chip?
First of all, let’s go over some terminology: Current measurements are measured in amperes (A), and requires that you send power through the multimeter to measure it. It also has a different setting on the multimeter from voltage measurements. For the most part, we use voltage measurements (DC or AC) when debugging or testing electronics. Voltage measurements are easier since they are pretty non-intrusive. Very little current goes through the multimeter, and it’s generally safe to do voltage measurements when the board is on.
Anyways, I think that when you say “no current” you did a voltage measurement and little or no reading, that’s what I’m going to assume anyways.
Did you get a better multimeter yet? If not, here is one that I use:
Now, if bridging the FET didn’t do anything, then it’s unlikely that the problem is with the FETs on the board, but it could still be a problem with the power if there is a short or break somewhere. To figure that out you need to measure DC voltage between BATT+ and LED2. You should see the same value at the strip as you see at the board.
Now, if Data1 doesn’t provide a signal (hard to know with that multimeter maybe?) then we could try switching to another data pad. As long as you don’t use Blade ID, any of the data* pads should work just fine. You just move the wire and update the value in the config file and see if it works better. If you need help updating the config file, post your config file, and me (or someone else here) will help. If data2/3/4 ends up working better, then you probably want to add a resistor to it (470 ohm) to protected it from shorts. (Unless of course your pogo pin PCB already has a resistor on it.)
Thank you for good advice and link. I did measure with DC and AC volt settings, I’m sorry for using the wrong terminology. I will get a better multimeter to make sure I measure correctly.