I don't really see how you're getting this from my request.
I cannot afford to return to college to close my electronics skill gap. But to try and close it all the same, I spent hours working through two separate Arduino learning kits, more hours watching how-to videos and reading article after article on soldering. Then to supplement not being able to afford one on my own, had my boss spend company money to buy me the soldering setup.
So when I followed instructions I found multiple times throughout the Internet to a T and my test didn't work, I came looking for a bit of support, since I also couldn't find any existing discussion/support that matched my issue.
I have poured my time and money into learning how to do this. I'm not asking or expecting anyone else to "do the work". I'm looking for support for an issue that you admitted even confuses you.
Refuse to help me anymore if that's how you see the ethics shaking out, but I would ask you to please not cast aspersions on me like that. I just need an experienced hand to guide me a bit, I wasn't asking you to design my whole project.
Just a data point to throw into the mix.
Here's an honest to goodness, vintage, they don't make them anymore, Adafruit TCS34725 breakout board. Hooked up to an Uno R3. GND to GND, Vin to 5V, SDA to SDA, SCL to SCL. Nothing could be simpler.
Uploaded the tcs34725 example from the Adafruit_TCS34725 library to the Uno, removed power, plugged in the breakout and reapplied power.
The breakout's onboard LED came on. Brightly. The example ran, and at first blush the colour values seemed reasonable. Put something red over it, the R value was the highest. Put something blue over it, the B value dominated.
Let the board run for a minute or so, removed power, and touched the board with a fingertip. Nothing was even warm.
That is interesting, and does slightly make me wonder if somehow me trying to just Dupont-wire it directly into my Uno somehow was problematic? I wasn't initially even trying to do my ultimate project, I was originally just trying to verify my soldering work on the header pins was solid before soldering the rest (did NOT expect the rabbit hole this thread has become). I didn't bother with a breadboard because I wasn't really trying to accomplish much. I'm absolutely willing to bring a breadboard into the mix now.
Like I was telling sonofcy above, giving this a whirl will have to wait until I am home with some time and spoons, but I'm absolutely going to see if this works out better.
If it doesn't, I might just solder together one more sensor and see if the first one really was just a defective fluke.
OK, I just tried to replicate this setup, wired up my TCS34725 using a breadboard, exactly as you did in the image. When I plugged in my Uno, both before and after uploading the sketch, the LED on the sensor did not light up, the serial monitor still output the "No TCS34725 found" message, and after a minute, the chip was hot to the touch.
I'm not sure whether it was fried due to incorrect wiring or just was defective, but I'm starting to feel that one way or another, this is not a functional chip. I'll have to try soldering up another one and seeing if it works any better.
OK, for some closure - and in case any future newbies have this happen as well - my subsequent work has demonstrated that I think that first chip was defective right out of the package. I had 5 other sensors and I soldered the headers onto all 5 today, and with a setup just like van_der_decken's here, all 5 worked.
So I'm chalking the first one up to either something I did that we can't narrow down, or just a defective chip.
Thanks to all who pitched in to help me!
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