Hi all,

Hopefully I can get some help, I got a nerdkit for Christmas and love it. Unfortunately it doesn't want to power up. I've quadrupled checked the connections but it doesn't start up. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter handy. I've tried the troubleshooting guide without any success. I licked the battery to see if it was good. Yep, got a zap -- and realized that the kit came with LEDs, so I could have just checked it with one of those :P

My crystal oscillator looks different from the pictures in the instructions, but it does appear to be the correct clockspeed, ditto with the 0.1uF capacitor. I'm going to try digging through some boxes for a multimeter that I know I have somewhere, but if someone can spot something that is obviously wrong I'd appreciate it.

From what I can see, it looks like it's together right. I would still suspect the battery in this case. Have you tried a different one?

What I can't see is the hookup on the LCD. Make sure the wires are to the correct spots. Some folks have mis-counted at times and hooked up one or two places off.

Hi Mongo,

I tried two other batteries besides the one that came with the kit. The LCD wires are all in the right spot.

On Step 4b, 2.5 Connect LCD pin 5 to GND

I assumed GND means the blue rail and not PIN 8 on the MCU.

Hi ganave,

I think the issue is your contrast resistor. You want to use a 1K resistor (black brown red) and it looks like you have a 10K resistor (black brown orange). Its likely everything else was working fine you just could not see the letters on your LCD because the contrast is all the way down.

Humberto

Sharper eyes than mine! The orange and red look nearly identical to me. Thanks!

Picture looks like a 1K on my laptop. I had to zoom it in to see it. Yep, about 10K. Glad it's working.

I use a 50mm camera lens turned backwards, and a flashlight sometimes to make sure :D

Glad it's working for you, and WELCOME! BM