Jay's "build thread" - lots of pics

[Jay200MPH]

Hi all, I recently purchased a partially-completed kit off Ebay (normally I would balk at trusting someone else's work but the stuff the seller did already is nice and clean looking... and it was a deal.) I'm just wondering if anyone can identify who the manufacturer was?



Main PCB front & rear...




The I/O board is already built... I hope he did it right.


Front panel (no markings on the back)



All the components are packaged in individual bags with these handy printed parts listings



This is weird - AC adapter seems to be 220V only but it has a US/Japan type plug and came with an adapter?


Complete kit came in this handsome white box

There are a few more pics here but they mostly depict the same things. Sorry for the crummy exposure, had the ISO set wrong on my camera.

Yeah, so I'm about to get down and start soldering. I have the instruction guide printed out but if anyone has any other advice or things not to do I'm all ears. I'm fairly well experienced building electronic stuff both as a hobby and a little bit for my last job, so I should be okay I hope... Don't have any oscilloscope but I can try the sound-card method if it comes to that.

Any info is appreciated!

- Jay

[Paradigm X]

"Rollin moss" suggests Technology Transplant. Search "Rollin" on here.

Based on what others have posted, Id carefully check all components before soldering, issues with incorrectly marked resistors etc. Also check the important transistors are correct. And you may not have a bootloader on your PIC. Hard to say really.

x0xshop.de (Substyler) and Gaetano on here sell known-good rare parts if youre missing anything.

Build manual is here - more complete than the PDF version floating around.

Good luck with it Theres tons of useful information here.

[Jay200MPH]

Thanks for the info! - but drat, I was hoping it was from one of the more well-respected sellers. Oh well, it was local and it was (reasonably) cheap, so if it has problems I'm not really out too much.

No bootloader should just be a matter of flashing it via the USB when it's fully built right?

I checked some of the rare parts against the known fakes / bad batches posted in this forum and didn't see anything amiss. I have a nice digital multimeter but it doesn't have the transistor tester so I hope those are all okay.

I still haven't taken a really good look at everything. I guess I'll start by testing the I/O board since that's done already. I'd hoped to have it built within a couple weeks or so, maybe I'm in over my head...

[antto]

no bootloader means you cannot use the USB/c0ntr0l to flash firmware
you'll need to either get a new chip which _has_ the bootloader, or get yourself this thing called "programmer" device afaik (which seems to be not for mortals like me for example)

[Altitude]

Rollinmoss = Technology Transplant.

Make sure you actually check the values of the components, do just go by whats on the bags. Many ppl have reported stuff being mislabeled.

[Paradigm X]

You can buy a new PIC controller chip from x0xshop for 10,55 € so no major loss if it has no bootloader!

[Jay200MPH]

Bah, I'm putting that aside for now, otherwise I'll get discouraged worrying about it and the thing will just sit on a shelf, never to be built. I don't want to bring back a whole bunch of forum drama, but I see at least some people have been successful with TT kits so we'll go from there...

Resistor colour codes are my arch nemesis, I'm badly colourblind. I will be double-checking them all anyway...

Is it possible to wreck anything on the I/O board by plugging it in without the rest attached? Like I said the guy I bought it from built the whole I/O board already so I can't exactly go through and test it step-by-step. My power supply outputs 11.8~9VAC which I'm guessing isn't too high to be a problem?

[guest]

you should be able to plug in the ioboard
after you do so
check the voltages on j4
and at the 5v and 6v regulators

if youre concerned about too much voltage
check the voltage across c8
if its above 28v or so it needs some help

[Jay200MPH]

Thanks. I'll do that...

Is it possible for R3 to have lower resistance in situ than the individual component? If I measure the spares I have in the bag they are both 6.8 kO but the one installed in the board only reads ~6.2 kO. It looks like the right colours (exactly the same as the other two) but if it's blue/red/red (6.2k) instead of blue/grey/red (proper 6.8k) I would have a very hard time telling.

The reason I'm wondering is I just had to swap R16 & R12, the labels on the component bags were switched and they were just assembled that way. Not a huge deal but I'm it's a darn good thing I checked.

I went over everything else with a magnifying glass (literally) and it looks okay so far... This kit has actual connectors at J4 and J7 instead of the jump cables mentioned in the build manual, which is nice.

Sorry for the many dumb questions, I'm sure I'm gonna have more coming too.

[guest]

most resistors will measure lower in circuit
because the other resistors around it
will be part of the circuit youre measuring

[Jay200MPH]

Ugh, I have AC voltage at the power connector but nothing afterwards. What's the "first" place I should be able to see DC? The capacitors? D40-D43 are all in the right way around but I can't get a consistent test reading on any of them, I'm guessing because the circuit is completing elsewhere and test current is not strictly travelling through the diodes?

[guest]

are there holes in teh pcb
for a power switch
if there are
then jumper them for now

[Jay200MPH]

Power switch is installed and connected (I did that myself, so far the only "new" thing I've done...) Obviously I've been testing this with it switched "on" (actually I tried both positions repeatedly with no effect.) Wish it were that simple.

[guest]

check for dc voltage on c3 and c5
if you dont find more than a few volts
check that diodes arent getting hot
d40 through d43
and then check that your meter read dc ok
by using it on a battery or usb jack or something

if all that seems ok
then unplug the x0x
and measure the resistance across the power switch

[guest]

which point on the pcb
did you connect the red powerswitch cable to