Thursday, May 31, 2007

Filter Board - Complete

This is good news, and bad news, in several ways. The good news is, that the filter board is done. If you've been keeping up with my progress, you know it has been a while since I finished soldering everything to the board, but it wasn't testing within the specs given by the manual. It turns out, that there was nothing wrong with it, I was just testing the wrong pins on the IC, I just didn't know how to count them. I was counting the pins as if they alternated, even & odd on each side of the IC, so when I thought I was touching pins 6 & 7, I was really touching pins 4 & 16. It is a good thing that I have experienced hams in the area who can help me out. I was finally frustrated enough to take the board to Neil's place (KC9BH) and have him help me take a look at it. After about 4 seconds, I realized my mistake. The good news is i got a lesson in soldering and desoldering while I was there, and he also let me borrow a better set of wire cutters so I could trim the component leads a little better.

The next step in the project, the front panel board. There is more bad news on this front though, for the next 5 weekends, I'm pretty busy. Company Picnic on June 3, Alex's Gymnastics Show on June 9, Frederick Amateur Radio Club Hamfest on June 17, Field Day on June 20, 20 & 22, and we'll be in WV from June 29 to Jul 4.

The final piece of good news, I'll never forget how to count the pins on an IC. That is what this project is about, learning something, and I certainly learned something yesterday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Some may feel squeamish about eating it, but rabbit has a fan base that grows as cooks discover how easy they are to raise — and how good the meat tastes.