Topic: RED has arrived

[Jumpin Joe]

I received my RED kit today

However, there are no instructions, no parts list and no paper work with it.  Should I have received any of this with it?

Joe

[John Sacrey]

Hi Joe,

Glad you got your box in. As for instructions, parts list, diagram, etc., go to the blitzortung website and look under how to participate. There is a .pdf for the red systems on there. Download and print it out. Having the parts lists and pics of both boards helped immensely for me.

John

Edit: or better yet check the first topic on this list.

[Jumpin Joe]

Thank you John.

Looks like I'll have to wait several days before I can start building it. I have another project that must be completed first.... if I know whats best for me! 

[Ian.]

Hi Joe,

Enjoy the build, two tips that might help, first is make sure that you lay the capacitors down where the STdiscovery board fits, the second is to plug the headers onto the STboard before soldering.

I was lucky with one but not the other 👍

All the best

[saratogaWX]

Must be Christmas on the "Left Coast" too.. the postman brought my RED kit today also.  I'll be doing the assembly next week (got to port my weather stuff to a new PC since the old one is having terminal issues )

Best regards,
Ken

[Jumpin Joe]

Hi Joe,

Enjoy the build, two tips that might help, first is make sure that you lay the capacitors down where the STdiscovery board fits, the second is to plug the headers onto the STboard before soldering.

I was lucky with one but not the other 👍

All the best

Thank you for the heads up and well wishes... Never can have too many helpful hints, I have not done any PCB work since the mid-seventies.

[Jumpin Joe]

Must be Christmas on the "Left Coast" too.. the postman brought my RED kit today also.  I'll be doing the assembly next week (got to port my weather stuff to a new PC since the old one is having terminal issues )

Best regards,
Ken

Ken, If you want to race to see who can finish first.... YOU WIN! 

I ordered the ferrite antennas with my kit..... man, they are tiny. When I signed for the package I said "that's it, I was expecting a larger package", fooled me.

[gwwilk]

To add to what redpis says, I stumbled around a bit with my Red build yesterday, Joe.  The 'gotcha's' that bit me were:

1)  Remember that electrolytic capacitors MUST be mounted with (+) and (-) leads in the correct position.  I didn't pay close enough attention, and just this morning unsoldered two 470 uF 16V and one 100 mF 25V capacitors because they were mounted backwards (The odds beat me there--should gotten 2 of 4 right by chance).  Rather than re-use them I've ordered replacements on e-bay.  (I will have several extras of each if anyone else has a similar problem.)  I got in the habit of cutting the leads off at the taped backing of the ceramic capacitors to remove them, which works well and leaves enough length for soldering.  Unfortunately this habit prevented me from noticing the different lead lengths on the electrolytic capacitors

2)  There are actually 47 Ohm and 49.9 Ohm resistors included.  SEARCH through the resistors with your multimeter until you find them.  I used 49.9 Ohm resistors in place of 47 Ohm, and am now two 49.9 Ohm 1/4 W 1% resistors short since they were essentially destroyed during removal.  (E-Bay again with 98 extras on the way.)

3)  The Star resistor networks MUST be mounted with the white dot on the network near the white square on the PCB.  There are three of those.  I missed that point before I soldered my first one in, and again the odds went against me.  Luckily it came back out intact.

4)  Not a critical problem, but my green, red, and yellow LED's were packaged in two parts, and I assumed one package was meant for each board.  This wasn't the case, so now I have a red LED as the GPS indicator and a green LED as the power indicator.  E-Bay had a combo package of red, green, blue, yellow, and white 3mm ultra-bright LED's for $6.58 with free shipping, so I'm going to replace something with something else when I figure out what.

Waiting for replacement parts will give me an opportunity to thoroughly review my work on each board in a search for other mistakes.

Go through your parts lists for each board and mark the troublesome parts in advance with highlighter, pen, pencil, an asterisk, or whatever so you'll remember to follow the instructions specific to those parts.  (I would suggest as an aid to those of us with a limited attention span that the document be revised to include asterisks or superscripts in with appropriate annotation following the parts list to warn of potential trouble.)  I found it critically important to follow the parts list as I assembled each board, marking off each component, and then each component section as I completed them.  Unfortunately the hierarchy of assembly order isn't always obvious, so some creativity was necessary to support shorter components among taller ones that had already been soldered in.  I probably could have avoided this if I had sorted the parts for each board by height as I located them during my inventory of parts.

[gwwilk]

Must be Christmas on the "Left Coast" too.. the postman brought my RED kit today also.  I'll be doing the assembly next week (got to port my weather stuff to a new PC since the old one is having terminal issues )

Best regards,
Ken

Ken, If you want to race to see who can finish first.... YOU WIN! 

I ordered the ferrite antennas with my kit..... man, they are tiny. When I signed for the package I said "that's it, I was expecting a larger package", fooled me.

I also wondered if I had gotten the right package when I signed for it, Joe, but turns out it's the complete kit I ordered.

Good luck with your builds, guys!

[Jumpin Joe]

To add to what redpis says, I stumbled around a bit with my Red build yesterday, Joe.  The 'gotcha's' that bit me were:

1)  Remember that electrolytic capacitors MUST be mounted with (+) and (-) leads in the correct position.  I didn't pay close enough attention, and just this morning unsoldered two 470 uF 16V and one 100 mF 25V capacitors because they were mounted backwards (The odds beat me there--should gotten 2 of 4 right by chance).  Rather than re-use them I've ordered replacements on e-bay.  (I will have several extras of each if anyone else has a similar problem.)  I got in the habit of cutting the leads off at the taped backing of the ceramic capacitors to remove them, which works well and leaves enough length for soldering.  Unfortunately this habit prevented me from noticing the different lead lengths on the electrolytic capacitors

2)  There are actually 47 Ohm and 49.9 Ohm resistors included.  SEARCH through the resistors with your multimeter until you find them.  I used 49.9 Ohm resistors in place of 47 Ohm, and am now two 49.9 Ohm 1/4 W 1% resistors short since they were essentially destroyed during removal.  (E-Bay again with 98 extras on the way.)

3)  The Star resistor networks MUST be mounted with the white dot on the network near the white square on the PCB.  There are three of those.  I missed that point before I soldered my first one in, and again the odds went against me.  Luckily it came back out intact.

4)  Not a critical problem, but my green, red, and yellow LED's were packaged in two parts, and I assumed one package was meant for each board.  This wasn't the case, so now I have a red LED as the GPS indicator and a green LED as the power indicator.  E-Bay had a combo package of red, green, blue, yellow, and white 3mm ultra-bright LED's for $6.58 with free shipping, so I'm going to replace something with something else when I figure out what.

Waiting for replacement parts will give me an opportunity to thoroughly review my work on each board in a search for other mistakes.

Go through your parts lists for each board and mark the troublesome parts in advance with highlighter, pen, pencil, an asterisk, or whatever so you'll remember to follow the instructions specific to those parts.  (I would suggest as an aid to those of us with a limited attention span that the document be revised to include asterisks or superscripts in with appropriate annotation following the parts list to warn of potential trouble.)  I found it critically important to follow the parts list as I assembled each board, marking off each component, and then each component section as I completed them.  Unfortunately the hierarchy of assembly order isn't always obvious, so some creativity was necessary to support shorter components among taller ones that had already been soldered in.  I probably could have avoided this if I had sorted the parts for each board by height as I located them during my inventory of parts.

Thank you Jerry, these are great tips. Any other helpful hints you find, hopefully, not the hard way will be greatly appreciated.

Joe

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

  For me, the most important thing was to read the documentation thoroughly.   There are hidden tips spread throughout, most are mentioned above, but they were 'in context' in the documentation. One of the most important things is to assemble by device height, beginning with the 'shortest'. You'll also find that the boards are pretty much laid out with component designation linearly from left to right, like reading a document. A very handy feature.
The large axial caps that will be under the Discovery module MUST be 'folded', as mentioned above. A lot of folks have missed that one!.  I assembled mine by groups of components, all SMDs, all diodes, then resistors, then small caps, by device size. This probably helped me not goof a component value somewhere.
Take your time with the resistors! As mentioned, they are hard to decode, especially for old eyes like mine. Check and double check, and check again before you solder... sort them, and install them by value groups, rather than device number,  that worked very well for me! And my old retired mind insisted I not confuse the 3 or 4 axial coils for resistors.

Oh, as you install the GPS module, it's tricky, sort of, a type mount I'd never used prior to retiring in 1998. When you've done that, you'll probably ck for solder bridges, etc. You may panic as you look in the vicinity of pins 11 and 18 or thereabouts, thinking you've got a solder bridge to the shield, under and behind the solder pin and device body. Nope... but it can sure look like it...

And when you get ready to check the system, make sure you're away from computers, laptops, etc.... a high frequency signal gets in and will confuse the hell out of you with interference.

[Jumpin Joe]

For me, the most important thing was to read the documentation thoroughly.   There are hidden tips spread throughout, most are mentioned above, but they were 'in context' in the documentation. One of the most important things is to assemble by device height, beginning with the 'shortest'. You'll also find that the boards are pretty much laid out with component designation linearly from left to right, like reading a document. A very handy feature.
The large axial caps that will be under the Discovery module MUST be 'folded', as mentioned above. A lot of folks have missed that one!.  I assembled mine by groups of components, all SMDs, all diodes, then resistors, then small caps, by device size. This probably helped me not goof a component value somewhere.
Take your time with the resistors! As mentioned, they are hard to decode, especially for old eyes like mine. Check and double check, and check again before you solder... sort them, and install them by value groups, rather than device number,  that worked very well for me! And my old retired mind insisted I not confuse the 3 or 4 axial coils for resistors.

Oh, as you install the GPS module, it's tricky, sort of, a type mount I'd never used prior to retiring in 1998. When you've done that, you'll probably ck for solder bridges, etc. You may panic as you look in the vicinity of pins 11 and 18 or thereabouts, thinking you've got a solder bridge to the shield, under and behind the solder pin and device body. Nope... but it can sure look like it...

And when you get ready to check the system, make sure you're away from computers, laptops, etc.... a high frequency signal gets in and will confuse the hell out of you with interference.

Thanks Cutty

These old eyes will check and recheck. Then check again. I like your approach to install the components.

My lighted magnifying lamp will get a good work out. Along with my patience.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Duh... I mean, 'radial'
The large axial caps that will be under the Discovery module MUST be 'folded', as mentioned above. A lot of folks have missed that one!.  I assembled mine by

[Jumpin Joe]

Duh... I mean, 'radial'
The large axial caps that will be under the Discovery module MUST be 'folded', as mentioned above. A lot of folks have missed that one!.  I assembled mine by

Thanks for the correction.... I could see myself going in circles.

[DaleReid]

Now don't get all wound up.

I'm finally getting to the point of sorting the components and hoping the cat doesn't jump up on the bench and play "watch the parts fly when I bat at them with my paw..."

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Now don't get all wound up.

I'm finally getting to the point of sorting the components and hoping the cat doesn't jump up on the bench and play "watch the parts fly when I bat at them with my paw..."

Ok... get the video camera running. I wanna see this.

[Jumpin Joe]

Just completed inventorying my kit and verifying the resistors, separated the parts for each build, everything seems to be here.

Getting ready to start on Board 10 Version 3.... small parts first, not going to rush.

Wish me luck.... 

[Maumelle Weather]

You'll do fine, Joe.

[Jumpin Joe]

Thanks John.

 Discovered the tip on my iron is too big to work on this project. Ordered a smaller one. Should have it tomorrow.

[Maumelle Weather]

At least you only to had to order a new tip versus a new iron like I did.   Doing the 4 tiny SMD's weren't too bad following FloridaKen's advice on the usatoa forum about tacking a corner down, soldering the others, then solder the tack. I think he also suggested putting a little bit of solder on the pads for the GPS module, then do one a time, letting the solder do the capillary action on the gold pins. I had to look at that when I was done with my 10X visor magnifiers to be sure that I didn't bridge 2 pads. A couple were close. Close enough that I got an X-acto blade out and gently stuck the blade between the pads to make sure the solder wasn't touching.

[Jumpin Joe]

I remember your iron failing. I have read the tips, suggestions many times and will do it again. So I really appreciate your input.

Without any problems I hope to complete it this weekend.