In todays session we started to look at fault finding procedures in regards to our Pic Boards.
I was happy to be covering this section as it was marked with an x in my initial review but also wanted to find out if my board was soldered correctly and in good working order as i had been worried about it.
Initially with this subject i thought it meant using instruments to test the boards (which is correct) however it didn't occur to me the importance of simply looking at the board first -VISUAL INSPECTION -which is the most obvious way of testing something and will probably solve most problems that can occur.
I found using these set asking these simple questions was a good fault finding procedure to start with;
The next stages fitted with my original assumption of fault finding, plugging it in and testing it on a computer however wasn't too sure about how this was done. I started off by plugging it into a battery and checking for any odd behaviours (buzzing, smoking and heating up) which seemed fairly obvious. but i didn't know that a board can have a program loaded onto it without all the components as it is loaded onto the chip and not the board itself, something i did not know before.
it was good to look at other peoples boards and discuss problems and check for faults as it reassured me that i knew what i was looking for and common problems that can occur such as incorrectly joining components together, and various soldering issues.It was also interesting to look at problems that had happened to other people which i had not encountered incase this happens in the future.
I was happy to be covering this section as it was marked with an x in my initial review but also wanted to find out if my board was soldered correctly and in good working order as i had been worried about it.
Initially with this subject i thought it meant using instruments to test the boards (which is correct) however it didn't occur to me the importance of simply looking at the board first -VISUAL INSPECTION -which is the most obvious way of testing something and will probably solve most problems that can occur.
I found using these set asking these simple questions was a good fault finding procedure to start with;
- Are the components fitted correctly?
- Are the components the right way up
- Have i used the correct values (capacitor & resistor)
- Is the track correct
The next stages fitted with my original assumption of fault finding, plugging it in and testing it on a computer however wasn't too sure about how this was done. I started off by plugging it into a battery and checking for any odd behaviours (buzzing, smoking and heating up) which seemed fairly obvious. but i didn't know that a board can have a program loaded onto it without all the components as it is loaded onto the chip and not the board itself, something i did not know before.
it was good to look at other peoples boards and discuss problems and check for faults as it reassured me that i knew what i was looking for and common problems that can occur such as incorrectly joining components together, and various soldering issues.It was also interesting to look at problems that had happened to other people which i had not encountered incase this happens in the future.