Excuse my soldering, it was my first time with a really bad and cheap solder
I am planning to build a garden with a soil moisture sensor with an Arduino nano and found out that you can use two nails and some wires. When I hooked up the wires, I got an output that worked fine, but the problem is that I accidentally touched the two nails together and realized I may have short circuit my board so I checked the board for any burnt parts and I couldn't seem to find any. I then tried to attach a led and it didn't light up. I then tried reattaching the nails to the board and I still got an input so the analog inputs work just not the digital outputs. By the way, there is no problem when I plug my board into my computer, it recognizes the board just like it always had. So my question is did I ruin my board for good and have to buy a new one, or is it some soldering issue because not all the pins are correctly soldered on.
don't know for sure, but you probably blew the diode on the underside of the board (under the USB connector). Does the power LED light up when you connect to your computer (without the nails)?
If not, and you are brave and not too smart, you could try shorting out the diode and see if you power up your Nano. If that works, replace the diode.
sounds like you might have wiring problems with the nails too.
Has the board ever worked? With simple programs? Have you gotten the correct drivers for the clone (CH349G or some such)?
If you shorted out the board, take a look at the side directly opposite the USB port and see if the black rectangular component with 2 leads looks okay.
Yes, the board has worked perfectly fine a while ago (about a week) with basic leds and regular programs like it should. The part you mentioned, across from the USB port looks fine, nothing out of the ordinary and I do not remember installing any drivers it was a while ago, but I use the online editor and it has been working perfectly fine.
If you were using the nails as a moisture sensor, there should have been a large value resistor creating a voltage divider with the soil resistance. Unless you screwed up the wiring, shorting the nails shouldn't have damaged anything.
BTW, don't use google drive for photos. Follow the guide.
Now that I've actually looked at it, I agree. I don't think I've ever done that badly. How do you get a blob stuck onto the solder mask? And there's 2 pins that look like they don't have any solder at all. Did you accidentally buy plumbing or lead free solder?
123Splat:
how do you figure that? it worked before he shorted the nails...
Because something soldered like that could work one time because it was sitting just right and the next time never work again until the right pressure was applied again.
