13 July 2008

ASM-2 (Part 6)

Today I did the construction of the PolyDAC Midi2CV converter PCB. As I said in the last post I ordered the complete kit from Elby Designs inclusive all the necessary components. After checking all the parts I found out that I had one resistor too much and came a 78L05 short. I will contact Elby to ship it with my next order. You can see the checklists that come with it wich are very handy. It also says which part number is which value. So it is perfect to take as a guidline for contruction.

My oldest daughter Joyce helped my out again today. She is 7 years old and really fond of electronics. Last week when the new parts arrived from Elby she was very excited and asked me a couple of times to wait with soldering so she could help. She usually looks up the part numbers on the PCB or in this case on the silk screen print out Elby supplied. This way she could look up the next part while is was soldering the one she looked up before. After that she points out the location to me for the next one. It really saves me time :) She also loves computer games so I guess she'll grow up to be a computer/electronics nerd just like daddy ;)

It is so relaxed to have the silk screen again for component orientation and I don't have to worry about misfitting. Despite that I did put one resistor in the wrong place. I had to take it out with the desoldering pump. That went reasonably smooth. Further I found it to be a very easy PCB. I was only doubting a bit about the orientation of the Crystal. But I think it should be mounted correctly now. There was one opto coupler supplied that was another type than stated on the documentation, but I found on the internet this was a perfect replacement with even the same specifications so that should also be OK .

In the picture on the right you see the finished PCB. There are only some connectors missing to connect the front panel components later. They were not included in the kit I ordered. But these are exactly the same as on the ASM-2 PCB. So I can get those at my local electronics shop too. All in all a nice way to spend the Sunday afternoon. Next thing is to look at a power supply for the project and order the front panel from Elby Designs. But before that I'll probably try to test this PCB because my friend Hanz is interested in one as well for his modular. If this one works OK I'll probably build another one for him. More on the ASM-2 project later.

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