Weather Station Hardware > Blitzortung

SaratogaWX Blitzortung build diary.

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saratogaWX:
Finally had some time to begin the build process.  My wife is away at our daughters helping care for the new twins, and I am on duty for my wife's mother who lives nearby in assisted living.  With nobody else to bother with the electronic mess, it's a good time to begin construction :)

Yesterday, I finished the inventory of parts and divided them into Amp and Controller groups.

I set up the assembly area on the kitchen table with anti-static mat, Panavice, bright light, Hakkon soldering station, and trusty magnifier headband.

Wow, the numbers on some of the parts are really small for old eyes, but at 10x, become clear enough to read.

I'm following along with Don's excellent assembly advice/checklist and starting with the Amplifier assembly.

First the SMD op-amps.  I found that a self-gripping tweezer with angled head worked best for me to hold the little buggers.  What worked best for me was to:

  Flux pen the mounting pads on the board
  apply a bit of solder to the top-right pad
  use the tweezer to position the SMD over the pads
  heat the top-right one to melt the solder and hold the part in alignment
  Solder the other pins
  Resolder the original pin
  inspect using the 10x lens to make sure all the joints were 'hot' and no bridging happened.

Took about 2 hrs to get the hang of that.. thank goodness that only 4 SMD op-amp packages were needed.

Then on to the diodes (done) and about half the resistors before bedtime.  More work on it today.

Jumpin Joe:
Glad to hear you are well on your way Ken!

Magnification will become, if it has not already, your best friend during this project.

Obviously, you have patience and appreciate the tips others have provided.

Joe

Cutty Sark Sailor:

--- Quote from: saratogaWX on September 23, 2013, 11:31:18 AM ---Wow, the numbers on some of the parts are really small for old eyes, but at 10x, become clear enough to read.

--- End quote ---
Egon did not send Eyeballs MK II with your kit either??? He left them out of my order, also. That's at least twice.

Mike

W3DRM:
Congratulations Ken!!! I have been too busy to do any further on my build the past few days but hope to get back to it tomorrow or Wednesday. Once I get back in the swing of building again, I'll finish up the step-be-step manual.

Good luck with your build!

saratogaWX:
Alright! Even after 40 years, I can still solder :)  :shock:  \:D/

I completed the RED Amplifier board and fired it up with a 5V for the hardware test and it worked per Egon's First Hardware Check.  \:D/  \:D/  \:D/  8-)



Thanks Don for making the resistor and ceramic capacitor checklist -- it really simplified the assembly!  I used Egon's RED build doc for the rest of the parts.  The 'hard' bits I'd encountered:
1) remembering that the longer leads are + for the LEDs and electrolytic caps .. don't cut the leads early :)
2) soldering the tiny lands for the mini-USB power connector (that was a 10x magnify job)
3) straightning the leads on the 5 ICs and getting them carefully in the sockets

Now on to the RED Controller assembly (likely starting Wednesday .. have to clean up the place for dinner Tuesday with son and family here).

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