Varistor on the USB port blown?

[fnorkn 2]

Hi

I started a thread about a busted sensor earlier, solved that problem by replacing an opamp. I think the cause was a shortcircuit on the usb port.

Now I want to upgrade my firmware by using the USB port, but it is no longer responding.

Not to worry, I have purchached an AVR programmer and successfully downloaded the firmware from the chip using ICSP1, so I can change the firmware.

But I would like to get the USB connection working again. Just for the hell of it.

I did some measurements, and want to check with you guys about assumptions. Here is the pic of the board (the blown coil L1 is bypassed with a piece of copper foil) :

Here is a piece of the documentation:

Now I assume that R8 and R9 are varistors, and are there to lead away spike voltages on the datalines to ground?

R9 is not conducting according to my multi-meter (good) but R8 is 33 Ohms. So D- is not getting through to the atmega 16u? So I think I should remove it, and see if the USB connection will work again?

Also, C6 seems to be busted. It is connected to the evaporated L1 coil, so I checked it out. It should be 1 uF according to documentation. The multi-meter says it has infinite capacity, which usually means it is blown. Indeed, I measure 3.4 Ohms, not good for a capacitor. I am not really sure what the UCAP port does, it does not seem critical to me for USB communtication, but I could be wrong?

Suggestions are welcome!

[fnorkn 2]

I removed the varistor and the capacitor.

When I measured them again, detached from the board, the values were OK.

So the problem is a short circuit somewhere else. Could be the atmega chip, perhaps the USB input ports are fried...

Desoldering this chip is not something I am really looking forward to, and if I need to replace it , I probably need to flash the eeprom, program, "fuses" , boot-loader (?) etc (I am used to PIC microprocessors, atmega seems to have its own way of doing things)

Edited May 2, 2016 by Guest