Arduinome not working

I finished building my Arduinome the other day. Afer quite a lot of soldering I was happy to assemble it.
Unfortunately I must have attached the cables to the shield the wrong way since my Arduinome is not working properly.
I forsaw this kind of problem so I decided to use pcb connectors rather than soldering the cables directly to the pcbs.

I'm using 4x4 sparkfun button pcbs (8x8 matirx) and the unsped shield.

This is a representation of how I connected the cables.
(can't do a technical drawing since I'm a big noob at this)
http://i38.tinypic.com/s2fgd3.jpg

can't you see the pic?
The link works for me at least.
Try the PDF.

I did connect just one row in different setups and I got all of the leds blinking (not just at the same time). But no respons from monome_base_test.

Yes

I followed the guide on this site:
http://www.julienbayle.net/diy/LiveInterface/

Downloading the last version of Arduinomeserial router
You need to download and install the .NET Framework 3.5 : download it here
You need to download and install the Arduinome Serial router: download it here. (last version: 3.1.1)

Flashing the arduino
The following was written by Melka on the Arduino forums but freely modified to use with the last version of code.
you have to install Mprog and the D2XX drivers from FTDI (your arduino will still work with the arduino development environement with these drivers !!)
MProg 3.0 > http://www.ftdichip.com/Resources/Utilities.htm
D2XX Drivers > http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm
1/ Install both, then run Mprog
2/ Launch Mprog, then click on Device / Scan. You should see something like this appearing in the box down.

Number Of Blank Devices = 0
Number Of Programmed Devices = 1

3/ Click on Tools > Read and Parse. This will fill the boxes.
4/ Check the “use fixed serial number” box and change the value below.
To have your board recognized as a monome by monome serial, you have to enter something like a40h-xxx (I'm using : a40h-001)
5/ Click on File > save as
6/ Once saved, click on the flash icon ( or Ctrl+P).
7/ Unplug / plug back your board from the usb port.
7/ Run Arduinomeserial, you should see something appear on the devices list.

Testing your pretty* arduino-based monome clone
Download this zip file built by folks of monome (link)
1/ Launch Arduinomeserial and choose OpenSound Control, down cable orientation.
2/ Launch the max/msp patch called monome_test.maxpat
3/ Test your stuff

have you tried any other patch? also make sure you have monome serial in the proper mode (osc or midi)...etc

what exactly are you seeing happen?

I tried to upload the standard blink sketch and that worked if I didn't use the sheild, so there is nothing wrong with te button pcbs or the Arduino. (except for one thing that was strange: one row was blue instead of green, I changed to blue to see if there was a odd connection, but I got the same result - blue. The only way I could change colour was to use red - so now all leds are red to match that odd row. I checked my soldering and it looked fine. Can't say I understand it).

Is the blink sketch supposed to work when the shield is connected?
I can't get it to work no matter how I connect the cables to the shield.
If it doesn't, have I ruined the shield when soldering?

The blink led sketch should still work with the shield attached since it only uses pin13 (which is not connected to the shield). I'm only not so sure if you can see the small smd led with the shield directly above it...

A high rez picture of your board (both sides) would be great to see if we can discover something that might be causing problems.
Did you check IC orientation? Bridged pads/connections on the pcb? Static electricity damage?

Here are some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/entartetemuzak

I managed to make a mistake soldering the shield. I placed some of the conn headers on the wrong side, so I warmed them up with my soldering iron and pushed them through to the other side... not pretty, but it saved me from desoldering the whole row. :-/

I think your problem might be with the rows of pinheaders.. If I understand correctly your shield will sit on your arduino, but it will be angled because of the missing row of black plastic, right?

The pinheaders are pretty picky about their connections, so there's probably one that doesn't make good contact. If you want to remove the row pinheaders it's easy to clip away the plastic first, after that you can push the metal pins out one at a time...

Edit: try connecting the pins with wires when it's not on top of the arduino.. These are always handy to have around: http://www.accu-totaal.nl/product_images/gd_main_1098_.jpg (in isolated version).

just checking, you soldered the sockets in first, then pressed the chips in after?

given all the wierd color issues, im a little curious about the buttonpads.

have you tried shorting one 164 switch pin on the in idc, to one 165 switch pin on the out idc connector and seeing if you get serial communication? you can also short a single led across the in and out on the appropriate led segments as well, but its harder to get the monome into a state where the led would light. (full on in the test app is probably the easiest)

I switched some connections and managed to get all the leds on at the same time. However no respons from monome_base_test.

Attaching new setup.

Tried moving movig the other cables around, but no luck so far as to get thing working with monome_base_test

is the serial port speed set correctly for your operating system? look in the firmware, mac and pc are different.

you may also try renaming the arduinome to m40h-xxx and trying monomeserial. a good indication that you are doing the naming correctly is that it will show up in the dropdown for monomeserial.

also try running the arduino environment, reset the board with the reset button and click the comport listening button, then hit buttons on the keypad... does the comport log window display anything?

If you're touching the backside of the keypad breakout board with your fingers, try not to. I've done that a couple of times with my kit (I'm a newbie as well). It'll make connections.

get a volt meter. learn how to use it. do continuity checks to make sure your solders and cables actually are making contact.

solder is not glue. building electronics is not like building legos. there's more than a visual component.

http://tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/tt06.html

full list of helpful tutorials:

http://tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/

good point about the connectors. they're always a major point of failure.

what i was really suggesting was tracing leads between components. for example, see if a leg of one led is *really* connected to that pin of the 7221. check the schematic, then confirm connections where you suspect problems.

Yes I did it!

It seems I missed that I had to use Arduinomeserial program and not the standard Monomeserial. The serial port speed was wrong in Monomeserial (which is mentioned in Arduinomeserial Firmware). Thank you unsped for the hint! I replaced some bad idc cables as well (which caused drop outs).

I'm attaching the wiring scheme for my setup (same as the first, but less messy).

Thanks all for helping.

I added a link to the PDF in the Arduinome Wiki.

I just followed this: http://www.julienbayle.net/diy/LiveInterface/8x8ArduinoMonomeClone.png

Can't say why something is put in a particular way. Sorry.

My uncle just took my button pads and is making new drawings since we are going to used different hardware