How do you tell if a MCP3208 (ADC) is blown

Thread Starter

waterlogged

Joined Apr 22, 2010
2
Well, long story short, I have a robotics project. It requires an accelerometer package, and I'm using a MCP3208 ADC to read off it. I finally got sick of parts falling off the breadboard (as several in this setup were prone to doing) and decided to give a protoboard a try.

Well, long story short, I accidentally soldered a couple of the legs twice. This meant that it got far too hot, and solder actually when down the leg of the ADC chip. It stuck well right near where the leg goes into the body, and it may have gotten too hot. (I'm new with ICs so I wouldn't know. I'm more of a gear head than an electrical person, but I've been getting into microcontrollers lately so...)

Now, when I look at the output of all the channels, it's showing -2725, which I believe to be twelve 0s. Every once in a while, it'll flicker to as high as -1100. The usual range for the output is about +/-500. Whenever it flickers to a different value, holding the IMU still will get it to settle back on the twelve 0s.

I checked all the soldering joints, and I can't seem to find anything wrong. Does this sound like a blown ADC, or a bad solder somewhere important? I know that can be difficult to tell, I'm just hoping for an easy answer. And if it is broke, how can I prevent a future chip from overheating in the case of another dumb move?

Thanks for your help
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,208
Yeah, it prolly got too hot. If you look on the datasheet it says 10 seconds for soldering time. If you went WAY over this.. It is most likely toast.
 

Thread Starter

waterlogged

Joined Apr 22, 2010
2
That's what I thought... Thanks for the conformation. I didn't really go above 10 seconds by any significant period, but I'm thinking flux may have run down the leg, as I was soldering it upside down (now I can see why that might be a no-no).

Thanks again retched.
 
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