Need Advice on whether I damaged my boards

gncguy

I am trying to set up a BOE and HW Board to do communication with SERIN and SEROUT.· I was setting up a jumper to connect the two grounds but I put one end into the Vin hole on one of the boards.· (Thats the problem with getting old· --·all small things are just fuzzy). ·I noticed the problem when the battery got hot from the short circuit. I have never understood ground when you are not grounded to the earth.· Could I have damaged the boards?· So far I have run Boe Bot Text codes on both boards and they seem to be fine.· I just hate to spend a lot of time trying to the communication working if the boards are damaged.· Are there any other tests I can do to check it out if damage is a possibility?
Thanks,
gncguy

Mike Green

It's possible to just damage one of the I/O pins, but that happens when you connect an I/O pin to something it shouldn't be connected to (like a voltage source above 5.5V or below -0.5V). You can destroy a Stamp or HomeWork board if you connect power backwards, but that's hard to do using batteries since the clips are polarized. Most likely you just ran down the battery. Given that the Stamps work with a simple program and nothing went POP!, you're probably ok.

allanlane5

Usually, if you damage a BS2 it will no longer be programmable. That, or you'll burn out an I/O pin. Connecting one board's Vss to another board's Vin might simply short the battery, bypassing the BS2 (which would 'see' zero volts, but zero volts never hurt anything, it's the current that burns things out).

Since it sounds like both BS2's are still programmable and still run programs, it sounds like you've dodged a bullet.