Ice Tube Clock - Lost my beep!

For RTC breakouts, etc., use the Other Products from Adafruit forum

Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
Locked
llamaegg
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:56 pm

Ice Tube Clock - Lost my beep!

Post by llamaegg »

Hopefully someone can help me with what I should be looking at to troubleshoot. I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to working on PCB's and whatnot, being this is only my second project after putting together a dual modded arcade stick with LEDS, so if I seem a little confuzzled I'm sorry, hah.

So when I got to the first time to test the beep it worked, but somewhere between then and plugging in the tube it's stopped working. I have a cheapo multimeter (that I really ought to replace at some point), but I'm getting roughly 8v on the first pin on the 7085, and 5v on the third tab. I think the problem might have to deal with the boost, unless I'm reading it wrong I believe it's only showing up as 9-10v.

Pictures of my still-learning-terrible-soldering-job!

Thanks for the help!

Image
Image
Image
Image

User avatar
adafruit_support_rick
 
Posts: 35092
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:42 am

Re: Ice Tube Clock - Lost my beep!

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

You've got quite a few solders which appear to be cold joints, solder-starved, or both. Please review our soldering tutorial, here:
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guid ... ring/tools
In general, solders should flow completely across the pas and up the pin, leaving a convex cross-section:
Image

I'd start with the solders on the 7805 5V regulator chip - those look particularly suspicious.

Also, it's hard to tell from the photo, but it looks as if you've got the ZVP3305 MOSFET installed backwards.

llamaegg
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:56 pm

Re: Ice Tube Clock - Lost my beep!

Post by llamaegg »

Aye, I know my solder joints are rough, still having issues making proper joints. Worried that might be what's causing the problem.

As for the 3306 (I'm guessing that's what you meant, as there is no 3305 with the kit?), unless I read the guide wrong with the writing being on the curved side (which it is) you want it facing away from everything, so in this case curved side towards the 20 pin female header, so it should be facing the right way?

I've already tried cleaning up the 7805.

Only thing I can think of is I messed up at some point while setting up the Regulator/100v Capacitor/Transistor, because I know it was working before that point, but I don't know what's eating up all the power and causing the diode to only get 9v instead of 40-70. Could I have maybe fried something during the build?

User avatar
phild13
 
Posts: 247
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:05 pm

Re: Ice Tube Clock - Lost my beep!

Post by phild13 »

I would concentrate on touching up the solder joints. I see a number of suspect joints. Make sure the tip is clean and tinned well and follow the tutorial rick linked to. It will help a lot. I would also closely inspect toe solder joints on the tube board. It is easy to short some of those together while soldering them. If your unsure post a photo of the tube board.

The FET Rick is talking about is the one next to R3 as in this photo:
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=43209
As explained in the link, the purpose of the fet is to disconnect power to the tubes filament and to the VFD driver (IC2) when the clock is unplugged or power fails. If the Fet is installed backwards, The fet won't be damaged if installed backwards it just won't turn off properly causing the battery to be drained in a short time because it is trying to supply power to more than it was intended to supply. If the FET is damaged and non operational then it could block voltage from getting to the filament and the VFD Driver IC2.

Did you test for boost voltage when you got to that point in the build process?
http://learn.adafruit.com/ice-tube-cloc ... d-assembly
If so what was the voltage?

Locked
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.

Return to “Clock Kits (discontinued)”