So, as some may know I have a Raspberry Pi Zero which was, incidentally, what version one of this BBS ran on. I got it for free as it had been put inside of an NES cartridge as a project to turn it into a Retropi. It was in a batch of games we got in at work and I took it upon myself to turn it into something actually useful. Add a wifi module and boom, it made for a nice BBS test platform before I moved it to the current server.

Move on to the last week, where I had finally found the thing again (it had gone missing for a while, lol) and I had started messing with it again. That was all fine until the other day when it just stopped working at all.

What I think happened is something fell on it when it, and a few other things, fell while I was moving something and yeaaaaaah... no dice after what should have been a noncritical bump.

So, I am going to attempt a reflow, as I figure maybe the BGA solder points got damaged -- most likely cause, as the unit certainly wasn't powered up, but if that doesn't work no biggie -- Pi Zero's cost 5 dollars. Won't be an issue to get another one with the next order of stuff for work.

So yeah, there's a story for you all.
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Kurisu Yamato
www.xadara.com

In article <5FC30565.9.local-tinkerin@finalzone.ddns.net>
"Kurisu" <kurisu@finalzone.ddns.net> writes:

What I think happened is something fell on it when it, and a few other things, fell while I was moving something and yeaaaaaah... no dice after what should have been a noncritical bump.

An important point to remember is that ESD kills Pi Zero boards fairly
easily. Any board that size has that same problem, for that matter.

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-nkeck72 (Mac Plus)

Re: Re: My Pi Zero died!
By: Nkeck72 to Kurisu on Mon Nov 30 2020 11:31 am

An important point to remember is that ESD kills Pi Zero boards fairly easily. Any board that size has that same problem, for that matter.

A good point to bring up. It's entirely reasonable it did get a nice shock, given how dry the air is inside a house this time of year.

If that is the case then it is what it is -- can easily snag another one, of course, and maybe this next one I'll give a bit more protection to. :)
_____
Kurisu Yamato
www.xadara.com

In article <5FC52D16.11.local-tinkerin@finalzone.ddns.net>
"Kurisu" <kurisu@finalzone.ddns.net> writes:

A good point to bring up. It's entirely reasonable it did get a nice shock, given how dry the air is inside a house this time of year.

Yeah. I lost the microcontroller in an Arduino Uno that way.
Thankfully, it was only the microcontroller and not the whole board, so
I just popped a new chip in the socket and it was good as new.

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-nkeck72 (Mac Plus)

Re: Re: My Pi Zero died!
By: Nkeck72 to Kurisu on Tue Dec 01 2020 11:48 am

Yeah. I lost the microcontroller in an Arduino Uno that way.
Thankfully, it was only the microcontroller and not the whole board, so
I just popped a new chip in the socket and it was good as new.

It's worth following this up with the fact we did try a quick reflow yesterday and there was no change. My pi is dead. F

Next time we do an Adafruit order at work I'll add one in. Thankfully I hadn't gotten it doing anything critical; then again, if it WAS doing something critical it wouldn't have been where it could get damaged, now would it?
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Kurisu Yamato
www.xadara.com