Hand-soldered LD1117 voltage regulator
Busted by a Battery
How two Batteries taught me how NOT to troubleshoot a problem
I’m sure that you, along with most hobbyists, enthusiasts, and even embedded engineers, have had kick-yourself-afterwards moments. I did well recently, with two such moments in 7 days – over the past week, I’ve cursed, paced, pulled at my (thinning) hair, doubted myself, and wasted hours and hours.
I was doing final tests before shipping my first set of prototyped-and-tested Toadstool PCBs, when I encountered problems with two of the boards. In each case I ignored obvious signs in my approach to solving the issues, instead heading down a rabbit hole. Read on to find out where the wheels fell off, to check how you would have solved these problems, and to learn how NOT to troubleshoot a problem.
