Most of the time, blogs talk about the great stuff that’s happening, they tease you with the upcoming fantastic.
But we all know that’s not reality, right? One step forward then two steps back, then a slide sideways down a rabbit hole, then forward again… it’s a dance between the mind, the body, and the external environment. And sometimes we step on our toes.
I’ve been stepping on my toes a lot recently. It’s been very frustrating and anxiety-inducing. Eventually [after more practice and when I have just more “parts” so I don’t feel so stressed about a mistake screwing up the one “widget” that I have on hand], I’m sure this won’t be true, and soldering will basically feel the same as, say, working on a bike.
But today is not that day.
I’ve been working on the base for a project I’ve been dreaming about for most of my life. It requires soldering a 40-pin Raspberry Pi header, a 3.3v power tap from there, a 5V power tap from there, and 3 grounds. As well as other supplemental wiring between USB, AV TRRS, and a “munging” board (Yes, I’m being vague on purpose, there will be more about this exciting project when it’s done).
The first time, it went great! I was ready to start making the supplemental connections when I realized that I had installed it on a Pi3, and the Pi4 has slightly different HAT shape that mine no longer adhered to… back to the drawing board.
The second (over the last few days), I’d finally finished the soldering. There were some curious apparently cross-wirings, but they were “temporary”, they showed up upon first connection, but immediately “broke”. Most things, however, seemed connected just fine… But several of them didn’t work. And then, when I powered the Pi on, some sort of smoke wisped up from a particular solder joint!
So I depowered it, took out the magnifying glass and my nose. The Pi4 seemed fine and didn’t smell like any magic smoke had been released. So I tried again, and got the same result, and then depowered and looked again. The only thing I can think of that’s smoking is maybe solder flux that’s contaminated a plug, or a dirty solder (long story)…
#DeepBreath
So, when the tool arrives, I’ll be desoldering this again, and starting again…
#OnlyForward.