Brad,
Congratulations on getting your SR40 going and thanks for the nice post! I hope (and suspect) the joy of getting it working has made up with the frustration involved in working through it. As they say no pain no gain. Hope your post will encourage others spooked by SMT stuff to give it a try and see how they do.
As to doing an IQ Pro - certainly a bigger challenge. The 9854 DDS chip on there is a much finer pitch chip -- probably about 2x (or more) the pin density of the chips on the Soft Rock. I know I found it a growth experience getting the 9854 put down on an IQ VFO board. One thing that does help a bit is bunches of the pins are the same - either power or ground, so you don't have to have all 80 pins bridge free!
Cheers,
Bill (kd5tfd)
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At 10:43 PM 11/6/2005, you wrote:
Been a ham since 1966 and I'm just now getting into building. I've
got a condition called essential tremors (pretty common actually -
kinda Parkinson's little brother I guess). I thought there was no
way I could put a kit together, and there was certainly no way I
could work with SMT parts. Well, taint so. I built an SR40! I had
enough solder bridges to build that bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
I've redone each solder joint several times. I installed L1 in the
wrong hole (doh!).
After a couple weeks of frustration (and reading everyone's posts
saying how they built their SR40 in an afternoon, etc.), I reached
behind the computer to pull the SR40 out for the last time and give
up on it. When I touched it, I put some lateral force on it
(slightly bent the circuit board) and, lo and behold, I started
hearing CW! I pulled that puppy out of the USB slot and gave
it "real close look over #3248" but didn't see anything suspicious.
I felt like the bending of the circuit board was a pretty big hint
of where the problem lay, so I hooked a little 5V supply and very
judiciously bent and generally fondled the little SR40 until it
started playing again. I took note of the area of the circuit board
where the flexion seemed to make a difference. Somewhere about 1/4"
from the USB plug is where my problem lay.
Then I did "real close look over #3249" and noticed one IC pin that
looked like it might not actually have gotten tacked down. It was
solder-shiny, but if that pin wasn't really and truly soldered down,
then flexing the board a little might make it touch it's pad and...
So, I pulled out my solder and gave just a little touch to that
pad. Plugged it all back into the computer, hooked it all back up,
and, by golly, it works!
Just want to thank the guys who put this kit together. I've learned
a whole lot pushing myself past my too narrow "limits," and I've
convinced myself that, given enough solder wick and bandaids, I can
actually build a kit and can actually work with SMT parts. I'm way
slower than most, since I've got to settle the iron tip down and
take deep breaths between pins, and I've got to rebuild everything
about 15 times. But my troubleshooting skills have gotten a bit
better, and, since I'm not being paid by the job or by the hour, who
cares how long it takes me? Thanks for providing this excellent
kit. I know I'm way behind the technology curve (I learned my
theory when it was all tubes); but this kit has made me feel like
I'm on some kind of cutting edge.
Now I'll go back to lurking and reading the posts and trying to
figure out what everyone else is talking about. Wonder if I could
build one of those new IQPro vfos for my Softrock 40?
Brad Smith
WA5PSA
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