RJ,
I toyed with this for an hour before posting a message about my problem. Put it away after making post, read your input...changed nothing and retested - got blinky. Kinda makes me worried about my soldering work 
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I'm realy sorry but do appreciate your input and time. If the issue comes back up again, Ill be sure to post pics!
Thanks,
Eric
Please do not apploigize that is what we are here for. It is my sincere hope that everyone that wants to can be successful at Do it yourselfing their light animation projects.
If you question your soldering then I would ask you this, Are you using you iron with it hot enough or are you worrying about burning up parts. If the latter than turn up your iron. If your iron is hot enough :
1 - you will not put too much on because you want have time!
2 - you will have a hard time getting a cold joint because about the time the solder flows it will be at temp fast enough you can't get off the joint too soon.
New people to soldering run the temp too cold, then sit playing with it waiting on it to flow good, this temps them to add more solder, mean while the part has had time to heat up internally so it is get overheated.
If you do not want to overheat the parts turn you soldering Iron hotter. I know sounds backwards but you are better to add 30 deg C more heat to a part for half the time because it takes time for the heat to move in to the part and even when you get the inside hot it takes time to damage it. If you spend more than 1 second on a small parts joint you have to look at why? It must be either dirty or your notmaking good contact ( clean your tip ) or your iron is too cold.
If you use a digital soldering station and it is accurate you should be about 360 deg C on most stuff. And I use 390 deg C on large items like triacs.
remember RJ's rules to soldering. .... Clean , Hot, Small amount, don't stay long. Do that and you will never have a joint that turns out bad.
hope this some how helps you.
RJ
