I was trying to connect ADXL345 via SPI interfacing to beaglebone black via a breadboard. The board was purchased a month back and was all good when connected to others like mpu6050.
I suspect the ADXL345 device was faulty, and possibly got shorted when i tried to connect it to the board, but i can't confirm on it. The pic of my ADXL345 if you see, has one of the chips at the bottom right corner above Y is slightly bent, so i suspect it is faulty.
My question:
1) Before connecting an external peripheral, how do i ensure it has no shorts? What apparatus or instruments i use to confirm that?
2) What should be the sequence of connection to beaglebone? Do i connect ground and Vcc at the end? Should i connect them when the board is turned off? Should ground connect before Vcc?
Kindly suggest – i have just ended up damaging a new board.
Best Answer
Please don't think about looking for "shorts". There are many ways that any electronic device can be faulty. Most of those faults are not "shorts".
If you really wanted to check for "shorts" then you need to be clearer what you mean - shorts between where and where?
In reality, you cannot test for most faults, before trying to use a module like yours.
The answer is your suggestion: "Should i connect them when the board is turned off" Yes, make all connections with all power off. Only after all the connections are made (and you have checked that they are correct) then turn on the power. When making connections with the power off, the order of making the individual connections doesn't matter.
You need to look at the schematic for that specific breakout module, or read its instructions (or reverse-engineer the schematic yourself). The arrow does suggest it's an output, but it might also be usable as a 3.3 V power input, in some cases, if the "VIN" connection is not used - depending on the design of that board.