particle-iot
Missing solder around the usb port
I had a circuit board produced that was based on this design. Most of the board worked well (I'm grateful for the OS project). However the USB port fell off when the cable was removed, and didn't seem to work before it fell off. (pictured).
Comparing it to the SOM evaluation board that particle sell, this board design seems to be missing some solder around the usb port. I think the 4 holes around the usb port should be soldered and this doesn't seem to be specified in the current design. I think this might be important for functionality as well as the strength of the usb port.
After discussing this with my supplier they have commented.
- The 4 holes that the USB fits into should be vias.
- The solder layer then needs to be modified so that the USB is soldered on in assembly.
Further investigating this, the micro usb port 10103594-0001LF seems to have had the features I suggest removed, compared to the eagle libraries for this part that I downloaded from snapeda.
However the library that I downloaded contained a number of other issues (as did other micro usb port libraries that I found) which might explain why these features were removed. I'm not sure of my next steps.
I think that I have resolved this issue on my board by swapping out the micro-USB port suggested for a similar one. The new part is Amphenol 10118193-0001LF, which replaces the Amphenol FCI 10118194-0001LF. This part is different but within the same range.
I have used a standard eagle library for this part to generate a design.
Assembly is ongoing, will update when testing is complete.
The new USB port fixed my issues, I'd recommend it for the whole project. If the repository owners are happy with this change I can merge it in.