Gunners TekZone Posted January 17 Author Posted January 17 12 minutes ago, Toastie said: the Star Trek folks teleported without any device present on the target site Theoretically, they had to scan the area?. But I would probably prefer the Jumper method (required a viewpoint of destination??). Cross over whole at a joined time/space local as opposed to getting "killed" (however you look at it, that's what seems to happen) and "rebuilt" after transmission. The spirit is immortal, this body... not so much, and I would like to keep it together for as long as possible However the geeks and nerds debate it... I personally think a jet might have to be involved :D But for now, I will follow along in these fun technical LEGO discussions! Quote
Toastie Posted January 17 Posted January 17 48 minutes ago, Gunners TekZone said: But for now, I will follow along in these fun technical LEGO discussions! Yeah, you are right. So we settle on 2A max. for the Interface B 12V AC juicer transformer? Best, Thorsten Quote
Gunners TekZone Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 Wow... I can see if I m going to get back into electronics, I need to seriously upgrade my desoldering toolset. Those cheapy spring pump things are bad, but I have nothing else, not even wick. Thankfully I need not make use of those pads anymore. BUT... I was clearly in a zone (twilight zone?)... I didn't realise that if I expect to put this USB-TTL adapter in there, I need to relocate that capacitor, which is so nicely gooped in :/ Quote
Gunners TekZone Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 (edited) Whew... desoldering (and resoldering) with a dual sided ground plane is surely fun for the whole family! NOT! Thankfully, I had a new capacitor of same value (higher voltage rating, which doesn't matter) and the new leads allowed me to reorient it along the back. I didn't really need to use the leftover lines on the ribbon cable, so I got them out of the way as well. The USB-TTL board nestles in with Tessa tape on the capacitor side and Kapton tape over the regulator...Followed up by a few layers of "alien" tape. Basically thick double sided adhesive tape. I highly suspect I will need to flow a generous amount of hot glue around there to keep that board in place as one plugs and unplugs it. Instead of trying to figure out how to safely solder to the CPU pins, I traced both TDX and RDX leeds to where they entered and exited the serial circuitry, which is now isolated by removal of the resistors, and soldered my leads there instead. As well as to the ground plane. Please don't judge my messy work, Hah! It is much much smaller to work on, even with magnification, than it appears in this image. A little hot glue or superglue will keep everything in place once I have thoroughly tested. Another sanity check and plugged everything in. Yay, it still works!... Always a good thing! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hmmm... Well, this is a bit disappointing... Everything is working on the inputs and outputs, but slower and dimmer on the outputs. My initial power checks showed 8.9v on the test port. But now I only have 4.6v with nothing else running. Hmmmmmm... The USB-TTL is powered by the PC, so that shouldn't be drawing any power. So now I have to figure this out, or forever run this at half power... Something I can relate with, but not approve of :P Oh well, thank heavens I still have some issue to nag at me... I was concerned I might be done thinking and have to go back to some Netflix bingeing :D I think I am going to have to double check that capacitor I replaced. It is the correct 220pf but perhaps it is not making a good board connection... Those ground planes do make for difficult soldering. I am not well versed enough to be sure, but if I messed up that capacitor, then it should affect the 5v logic (which is apparently working fine), not the 9v output port voltages... Gotta open it up again :P Edited January 18 by Gunners TekZone Quote
dr_spock Posted January 18 Posted January 18 6 hours ago, Bliss said: The original Lego PSU is 12VAC 7VA so we talk basically of 600mA at 12 VAC for the whole box... It not much... Can the Box use more amps if we connect a bigger PSU say 12VAC at 2A (24VA)? No matter USB-C or USB-A, from a computer port it is not like a PD Charger I think... I would use the USB from a computer to have both DATA and Power. But anyway, saying this, google tell me: Most computer USB ports supply 5V of electricity with a maximum current of 0.5A. So maybe not enough to use the interface at least like the spec... but still... How about wiring a USB connector directly to the 5V rail of a PC power supply? This old PC PSU lists 22A max on the 5V. Quote
Gunners TekZone Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 (edited) 5 hours ago, Gunners TekZone said: I am not well versed enough to be sure, but if I messed up that capacitor, then it should affect the 5v logic (which is apparently working fine), not the 9v output port voltages... Gotta open it up again :P Well... It only took me 5 hours to diagnose and fix... (and I really was at it the whole time... I is tired)... But it turns out I DIDN'T mess anything up with the capacitor relocation... Wow And FYI, isopropanol will weaken hot glue connections, so that was easy to remove. I was getting very high resistance over the 9v line (14+kohm). And while testing, it broke at the main board joint. So I replaced it... only to have the grounds also break... AH HA!!! It was the 30 year old ribbon cable solder joints (EDIT: Actually, the solder joins where fine, the rather rigid and non-copper wire in the cable simply fatigued very quickly and snapped right at the joint). For all I know, that ribbon cable might have been a contributing factor in the serial connection??? I did so many tests, but didn't see any visible issues. Oh well, too late now, it is "improved", deal with it So anyhow, after way too much time and effort to remove, not the ribbon cable, as that all but fell off in spots, but the remaining little bits in the both board's through hole connections. I then replaced with new wire, tested voltages as good, and reassembled it. It works great! End of story... ... I hope Edited January 18 by Gunners TekZone Quote
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