Testing Arduino Boards, I/O Pins etc.. Test Shield - Test Software

Maybe this shoulda been here:

More stuff at: http://terryking.us/arduino-testing.htm

Hi - I like the idea :slight_smile: that I can test the arduino board easily.
To eliminate the nagging thought that I damaged it by mistake, and so the software does not work!!

I rarely solder - mainly just to put pins on for use in a solderless breadboard, so although I have a mega, am mostly using my mini...

I think that I could set up a breadboard with the resistors as you describe, and have a test location for the mini - does that make sense?

Terry

Your test methods look very good and the way you did the board makes a lot of sense.

I helped develop the official test suite for Arduino, if you could re-write your test using the standardized testing library, we could incorporate it into the full test suite. Your test would stay the same, the only thing that would change would be the format of the output.

http://code.google.com/p/arduino/wiki/ArduinoTestSuite

Mark

I helped develop the official test suite for Arduino,

Of course that would leave mega based boards not tested on all their avalible pins.

Lefty

retrolefty:

I helped develop the official test suite for Arduino,

Of course that would leave mega based boards not tested on all their avalible pins.

Lefty

@LEFTy you're RIGHT, which happens pretty often :slight_smile: I will be making a MEGA Test Shield soon. IF this seems like a good approach a real Shield with SM resistors etc. could be made.

@MARK, please get in touch about this: terry@yourduino.com

I have a long background in chip testing at IBM and I've been thinking of writing some more detailed self-test code for Arduino internals, memory etc. With the idea that Arduino users could run some kind of confidence tests long after their Arduino left the factory. There must be code from ATMEL??

Of course there's a lot of guts that can't be tested in a self-test mode.. But I think we can assume that ATMEL did OK at Chip Test and now we are mostly looking for Board Connectivity and I/O pin damage issues.

What's your opinion about this stuff?? Should we start a new thread??

Thanks Terry AWESOME stuff.

I have the Mega 2560 and ran into an issue loading the sketch. It seems that more then two !! in a row causes an error. Found by this posting
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?action=profile;u%3D77604;sa%3DshowPosts

Just thought I would give a heads up . Also If you read this post can you tell me where the Ten errors are I count 7 but i am missing 3 somewhere.. And why in Test5 did PIN 5 fail when the rest returned OK. Thanks again for a great tool.

--- TEST START ---
TEST 001 - Any stuck pins?
VoltsRead = 2.51 -- OK

TEST 002 - Digital Pins Source Current
PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5 PIN-6 PIN-7 PIN-8 PIN-9 PIN-10 PIN-11 PIN-12
2.49 2.48 2.49 2.48 2.48 2.48 2.48 2.49 2.49 2.48
-OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK-
TEST 003 - Digital Pins Sink Current
PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5 PIN-6 PIN-7 PIN-8 PIN-9 PIN-10 PIN-11 PIN-12
2.48 2.48 2.48 2.48 2.48 2.49 2.49 2.48 2.48 2.48
-OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK-

TEST 004 - Analog Pins Source Current
PIN-1 PIN-2 PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
-OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- -OK-
TEST 005 - Analog Pins Sink Current
PIN-1 PIN-2 PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5
4.99 4.99 4.99 4.99 4.99
-OK- -OK- -OK- -OK- FAIL

TEST 006 - Analog Pins A0 to A5: A to D (About 2.50 V)
PIN-0 PIN-1 PIN-2 PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5
2.10 2.26 2.47 2.48 2.47 2.48

TEST 007 - Analog Pins A0 to A5: A to D (About 3.33 V)
PIN-0 PIN-1 PIN-2 PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5
2.41 2.39 3.31 3.31 3.31 3.31

TEST 008 - Analog Pins A0 to A5: A to D (About 1.66 V)
PIN-0 PIN-1 PIN-2 PIN-3 PIN-4 PIN-5
2.08 2.17 1.64 1.64 1.64 1.64
TEST COMPLETE
THERE WERE 10 FAILURES

I wrote test vectors for complex chips at Teradyne one summer, that was kinda fun, working in Boston and walking around the corner to Chinatown for lunch.

Did anything ever comes of this? I'm looking for a project I can copy so I can test my Arduinos and get a report on the (remaining :P) functionality of all the pins. Sometimes I make a mistake in pin connection and it seems like the pin still works but it leaves me wondering and wishing for a comprehensive tester.