E Quantum

[djs]

Next step is to probably walk away for a little bit, so you don't get frustrated and start burning things

After that, get a piece of paper, and a multimeter, and start drawing a signal diagram- what goes from where to where. Should these two parts have continuity between them? Does it be really test out?

My guess is you probably have a short or bad connection somewhere. Remember when you're testing with your multimeter to test on the leg or electrical component, not the solder if you can. Sometimes a connection can look good but not necessarily be really joined with solder.

 

[sl98]

In English that I think a PTH may be I have not soldered over any optional battery stuff

If using a single battery on Quantum you need to bridge DB- and B+



A x-mas bulb is good for testing. I tested a Quantum just last night with this setup.

 

[thequick]

I see the two 427 resistors that run parallel are installed wrong (see pic #9). They should be turned 90 degrees so that they align with the white lines printed on the board.

 

[OverTheTop]

I see the two 427 resistors that run parallel are installed wrong (see pic #9). They should be turned 90 degrees so that they align with the white lines printed on the board.

I have seen this many times over the past 15 years with hand assembled boards. Just attention to detail is the only thing to fix it. Just take extra care with the assembly.

 

[sl98]

I see the two 427 resistors that run parallel are installed wrong (see pic #9). They should be turned 90 degrees so that they align with the white lines printed on the board.

Good eyes! Those should be easy to remove and properly align.

Also check your jumper if you are using only 1 battery.

You should be up and running with these fixes.

 

[Oberon]

I have been putting BP 18mm motor igniter in the blocks to bridge the gap. Not always as I wasn't sure if was needed.

The drogue and main channels will show red on the status screen if you don't have an unfired ignitor installed in the blocks. The Quantum has an automatic continuity check, and the red just indicates no continuity (and will prevent you from arming) - which is exactly what you want if your ignitor is bad or not installed! It's a built in safety to keep you from launching with a bad connection to your charges.

You can also use a christmas bulb or 100 ohm resistor in place of the ignitors if you want to test, or run with only one channel. A short piece of wire will also let you pass the continuity check, but you want some kind of resistive load otherwise if you fire the channel you'll get a ton of amps and might damage your board.

 

[Oberon]

In order to operate with only one battery, you will need to solder a jumper (a short piece of plain wire - you can use a trimmed off lead from one of the resistors in the kit) between the two holes I've circled. On the top of the board they are labeled "DB+" and "B+".

If you don't do this, you will never pass continuity, because there will be no voltage on your deployment channels.

 

[cerving]

Three things: 1) The two 472 resistors between the optoisolators are turned 90 degrees; 2) You need to power the deployment channels, either by adding a separate battery between the DB+/DB- pads (two battery configuration) or jumping the B+ and DB+ pads (single battery configuration); 3) You missed the 103 resistor at the edge of the board above the buzzer. The latter will keep the buzzer from sounding.

 

[rharshberger]

soldering... well here goes

A few tips...
1) Always tin the tip then wipe clean with a damp sponge before applying solder for each connection (unless you can rapid fire the process)
2) Use (if at all possible) a liquid or paste flux designed for electronics
3) Keep a supply of acid brushes and alcohol to pre-clean area then clean after soldering
4) (As I was taught) Clean pad(s), add flux to pads (a small dab will do ya, more not really better), add part (hold in place so hands free), clean iron tip (sponge), touch tip to solder (wetting, plus a little extra for the bond), then touch pad/solder tab
5) After the flux flashes (small puff of smoke), remove heat as soon as you see it flow, the solder should have smooth shiny appearance; the pad and tab have smooth fillet of solder
6) If solder joint not shiny or globbed (thi happens, possible cold joint), u can add small amount of flux and re-flow or solder; careful tho, after 2 or 3 heat cycles solder should be removed (solder wick works best) and new solder flowed in

View attachment 307042
found on the net, fairly good view of what you should see

7) When done for the night (or morning), right after turning iron off, clean tip on sponge then add enough solder to cover the tip (small blob is ok)

The last step is so it's ready to clean off and re-wet the next time you heat the iron up to solder; it also protects the tip by keeping corrosion at bay.

For those that want to really torture themselves, there are a few resources online, just do a search for "solder standards".

One example is Nasa, they have an old (but still useful) STD-8739.3 pdf accessible online. The first portion of the file is the typical government stuff, but around Chapter 8 there is a lot of useful info with diagrams of what the joints should look like. Also, if you have some time (and want to do soldering on more than just a regular basis or want to use it as a kick-up to your career) a good (meaning current) standard to know is the IPC J-STD. Folks that have/had this training at my former employer got 2-3$ more an hour than without. A good video to watch is at

[video=youtube;hsKcKvs5dNE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsKcKvs5dNE[/video]

Now, the video shows hot air and iron techniques without much actual instruction (they get paid to teach), but it should give you an idea of what to shoot for!

Hope this helps!

fm

All good tips, however Cris recommends using the solder he sends and not using other fluxes or solder.

 

[OverTheTop]

IPC-A-610 is the one you want if you want to check what target condition for the joints is.

Your suggestions are one way of achieving decent joints, but not necessarily optimum. I was taught by an ex-military instructor but with emphasis on more practical outcomes.

Interestingly the wet sponge thermally shocks the tip, stressing the iron coating and shortening the tip life. The sponge also accretes the rubbish off the tip and re-deposits it back on later, especially if not kept clean. His suggestion is to use tissues (not aloevera or other special types!) to wipe the tip, then throw it away. He was a bit more radical and actually used a piece of wood (pine) to wipe the tip on. That was a bit too radical for me but the tissues work well.

There are many ways to skin a cat. I am not a big fan of solder pastes, but flux (especially from flux pens) are almost a necessity, even with flux-cored solder, for surface mount soldering, especially when part size goes down.

Also, don't bother looking for a nice shiny joint if you are using lead-free solder. Adjust your expectations as grainy grey joints are target condition, and shiny glossy fillets will not happen. Sn-Pb solder does get the nice shiny finish on good joints, of course.

I will eventually put together a soldering thread with all the relevant instructions. Too busy renovating and building rockets currently...

BTW, don't get me started on "no-clean" fluxes

 

[dford]

Ill start be saying I just fired off both a main and drogue E match!!!!!!
BooH YaH! Take that stupid me! LoL!

I have read all the responses and am grateful for each and every one of them. Is all it took was reading "472 in between the SOIC are 90 degrees the wrong way."
Me-> no way, could it be?
And the battery thing a ma jig, bridge that dilly to.
Me-> say whaaaat?

So I did. Both turned teal "ON" both fired!

Then of course I had to check my other two EQuants and sure enough, the second one the 472s were flipped also.
Me-> DoH! What a moron! UggH!
And of course the bridge thing a ma jig wasnt soldered either. So I flipped the two 472s bridged the battery dilly on the second EQuant AND... nothing. haha I expected that though. To be real, real honest. After the first one not working, then the second one not working. Oh I took a breather all right. I kicked a few several cases back and made sure that thing knew I meant business. The next day it reminded me it meant business too and still didn't work. All that to say this, I definitely would need to go over the joints with everything i've learned from all of this.

So what about the first EQuantum? I only needed to solder the battery doohicky. So I did but I only had one igniter terminal in due to trying every possible way to get it to work. I figured i'd try it just to see. Wuddya frickin know?! It works. Probably did the entire time I just didn't solder the battery dizmo.

So now I think it is safe to say I have two working Eggtimer Quantums in stock and feel really good about soldering any other Eggtimer products in the future. Especially with TRF and Cris around.

Now, how am I going to explain two extra Quantums due to an incy wincy tiny valuable step?
Easy, i'm not going to. It just works.
Thanks again everybody!

 

[cerving]

All good tips, however Cris recommends using the solder he sends and not using other fluxes or solder.

The reason is that most off-the-shelf solder is rosin-core, which is fine for larger through-hole projects (like the Eggtimer Classic) but just makes a mess of a board with SMT components. Similarly, most off-the-shelf fluxes aren't no-clean. If you want to use external flux, use a no-clean flux like Kester 951 or Chip-Quik SMD291. Just like with the solder, go easy on the flux... "no-clean" doesn't mean that it can't make a mess if you use too much.

Early on in the Eggfinder development process I tried using flux with the GPS chip, and it really didn't help much. I don't use it. The current board has nice larger pads which make soldering a whole lot easier, but you still have to inspect the joints with a 10x jeweler's loupe. It also has much larger holes in the board for soldering those 8 square pads on the bottom of the GPS chip, which helps immensely. Those assembly enhancements will be on a future revision of the TRS board, too.

 

[ksaves2]

Ill start be saying I just fired off both a main and drogue E match!!!!!!
BooH YaH! Take that stupid me! LoL!

I have read all the responses and am grateful for each and every one of them. Is all it took was reading "472 in between the SOIC are 90 degrees the wrong way."
Me-> no way, could it be?
And the battery thing a ma jig, bridge that dilly to.
Me-> say whaaaat?

So I did. Both turned teal "ON" both fired!

Then of course I had to check my other two EQuants and sure enough, the second one the 472s were flipped also.
Me-> DoH! What a moron! UggH!
And of course the bridge thing a ma jig wasnt soldered either. So I flipped the two 472s bridged the battery dilly on the second EQuant AND... nothing. haha I expected that though. To be real, real honest. After the first one not working, then the second one not working. Oh I took a breather all right. I kicked a few several cases back and made sure that thing knew I meant business. The next day it reminded me it meant business too and still didn't work. All that to say this, I definitely would need to go over the joints with everything i've learned from all of this.

So what about the first EQuantum? I only needed to solder the battery doohicky. So I did but I only had one igniter terminal in due to trying every possible way to get it to work. I figured i'd try it just to see. Wuddya frickin know?! It works. Probably did the entire time I just didn't solder the battery dizmo.

So now I think it is safe to say I have two working Eggtimer Quantums in stock and feel really good about soldering any other Eggtimer products in the future. Especially with TRF and Cris around.

Now, how am I going to explain two extra Quantums due to an incy wincy tiny valuable step?
Easy, i'm not going to. It just works.
Thanks again everybody!

Now you got plenty for future projects or a whole installation for primary and backup. An informative aside: I downloaded all the build photos to a directory and the build instructions/user guide's PDF's. I would open the build photos and minimize back and forth between them and the instructions. That would have avoided your 472 mistake. The single battery setup is in the instructions and makes it important to read them from stem to stern to pick up on that before the build.

Nonetheless, it's very satisfying sorting stuff like this out. Now it's time to build more projects.

Kurt

 

[djs]

Just remember: