IceTube Clock acting weird

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MGaddict
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by MGaddict »

Like I said before, the best camera I got is my cell phone which really isn't very good.
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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Your soldering looks very good in general. Lighting and lack of focus can make it hard to judge joint quality from a photo, but three pins that look a little rough are the two lower pins of Q3 and the end of R3 closest to Q3. Take a closer look at those, and if they are not smooth and shiny or haven't flowed onto the pin, touch them up with a clean hot iron.

MGaddict
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by MGaddict »

I've rechecked those connections several times after reading about somebody having trouble with q3. It is blurry right there in the photo I'll admit but looking through the magnifying glass, those joints look just as good as all the rest. I reheated them again just to make sure.
http://youtu.be/qE80_rIxrlw This is another video. This time I made sure all the capacitors were below .01v before powering on the clock. Almost all the digits come on initially. You can skip near the end of the video and you can see eventually the majority quit working. When I ground out the bias pin, you can see all the digits actually do work. Eventually, given about 5 minutes, all I get is an occasional single line on the second to last digit blinking.
I got some better photos of the top of the board. If you are correct in that grounding out the bias pin should shut the display off, it makes me wounder, did I put something in backwards? I can't see under the components to check the positive negative obviously, and I can't find a diagram of the silkscreen so I'm not sure how to check. But here are those photos.
I've got 2.02 volts on the bias pin.
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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

We've had a couple reports of similar symptoms. I've asked a couple of our other engineers to have a look at the issue.

MGaddict
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by MGaddict »

It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry, I've been gone.
So the directions say that when testing the boost converter with the clock assembled, I should be getting around 20v. It doesn't give a range however and I'm getting around 32v. just removing the display but leaving the chip in place and no display it's 44v.
I really want this thing to work. I'm tempted to simply solder a wire from the bias pin to the ground and say, "there, it works." However I'm not sure if doing that would somehow cause damage to some component shortening the clocks lifespan or possibly causing some other issue.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

As I mentioned, we have had several reports of the same problem recently. One of the other customers is sending his clock in so that we can examine it to identify the cause.

I think your boost voltage is fine. As a temporary workaround, you could wire a jumper from the Q3 side of R3 to 5v. Since that bypasses the power-fail circuit, I would remove the battery so that it doesn't drain the battery in the event of a power outage.

Thanks for your patience.

MGaddict
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by MGaddict »

Well that works perfectly. No I don't have the battery in but wow. That's a nice little clock. I'm going to a bit more busy then I anticipated over the next few weeks so I'll wait before I start trying some of the mods on it. Is there any way to be notified if the engineers find a cause and possible real solution?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

We will post updates to the thread linked here: http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.ph ... 8&p=199151

atanas
 
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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by atanas »

I seem to be having exactly the same problem. I had only a line or two show up on my clock initially and, when I started browsing for help on this forum, I saw MGaddict's first video (thanks, MGaddict, for posting it). When I tried what he did, I got the same result and followed the rest of this thread.

I have tried all suggestions posted here and ended up following the exact same troubleshooting script. Most of the measured voltages I saw were within close proximity of what he reported (eg. 3.08V/2.06V on the sides of R3). I've now too installed a jumper b/w the Q3 side of R3 and +5V and the clock appears to be working as expected.

I checked the thread which adafruit_support_bill suggested we follow about someone shipping their clock for a closer inspection but am not seeing any development there in the past 4 months. I will be willing to send mine in, if this would help speed up the process. I will post there as well.

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Re: IceTube Clock acting weird

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Thanks for the clock offer. Let's continue the discussion in the other thread. :D

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