Dumbs... you can do a shruthi!

Discontinued DIY products Shruthi
#1

hello at all… i am flo from france. ( so first sorry for my english) I have just beginned my first shruthi kit, in fact my first kit, and i think i have already burn the mother board and some component: first ignore the sage council of buy a 20 bucks adafruit kit, save some money dollar on a very crappy iron: At 8e at bricomarché ( pour les connaisseurs). I must say that my technology teacher say i was good at soldering…more than ten years ago…

so thats the problem: my iron was not heat at the point, so i must "fusion " solder on the boarder. But the hole nd the component weren’t enough heat, so the solder was bad and form many time a bull on the surface…
Plus a strange fact: while soldering, a strange yellow plastic/glue appears on the pcb: don’t know if it come from the pcb or the solder? but i have had the feel that it cover the hole and the component before the solger so i am afraid of a bad contact…

so i stop the build for instance…

there is some photo:
[IMG]http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/4267/img0582f.jpg[/IMG]
By [URL=http://profile.imageshack.us/user/itaya]itaya[/URL] at 2011-06-06

#2




#3

so my main question are:
-please tell me a good but not too pricey iron from an online shop to grab (if possible with free delivery, french shop selectronic?..
-in your advice is my mother board dead? should i take a new or continue?
-Is it possible to control it with a multimeter??

  • i think that some place of the board and component wer over heated: as my iron was not enough heat at thr end, some of the boarder were in contact too longer with parts of the boards or component… IS this possible that i have burned some components ( as the quartzs): i have stop the build just during the atmega socket
    Should i rebuy the components too or can i pick them up for an eventually new board???
    Can i “wash” the pcb?like she is new?

i know this post is a little ridiculous, but thank for any help, i begin to believe i had better grab an assembled unit… so shame… thanks

#4


well, at least you have used too much solder. if the connection is good this would not matter very much, but these pads are in a region (underneath the LCD) where you’re supposed to cut the wires as close to the board as possible to avoid short circuits with components on the LCD.
you could use some desolder wick to remove the excess solder.

the digital board doesn’t have too many components, so you could complete it and do your voltage checks. and then see if it works. if something is fried there should be a way to troubleshoot it. but don’t solder the lcd to the board before everything works fine.

#5

Okayyy… Some of bad things you did:

  • Start straight away on a complex kit without practicing on something cheaper
  • Try to save money on tools - if there’s one thing you should never go cheap with, it’s equipment!
  • Use “unproven”/“untested” equipment and solder on something precious

The very good thing you did:

  • Stop before going too far and come here to ask questions

Your soldering iron looks more like something you’d use for big electrical work - not electronics. Probably 30W or 40W. I have never found satisfying equipment for electronics in Castoroy Bricomerlin. It is likely that you have burnt the PCB a bit. The yellow goey stuff is solder flux - it looks like your solder is not adequate too. But I have seen worse.

Some suggestions:

You can wash the PCB. To check connections, look at the image of the board and check for continuity on all the traces. If you want to start over, I have boards in stock, please email me if you want me to sell you the few replacement parts.

#6

thanks so you think i must continue??? i am very surprised… what is this yellow glue we can see on the photo??? thanks!

#7

sorry don’t see the last message!

#8

You might wanna recheck all the solder joints you’ve made so far, at least one looks bad to me. As for the iron… Meh, ive seen worse, but it dosnt look too good…
Protip:you want to solder with the side of the tip, not the tip itself, also most components can take a fair amount of heat, but you should still try to keep the iron on them for as short as possible, its better to add the solder, wait 3-5seconds, and then reheat it so that it flows nicely onto the pad/component, than to just smite it with heat and kill it the first time around…
And that yellow stuff is probably flux, its harmless, and contained within the solder … Its perfectly normal, and can be removed with either water, or better yet alcohol… :slight_smile:

You will want to read this : Soldering 101 :slight_smile:

#9

One thing that worries me a bit is that the GND/+5V pads have been filled by solder. How did it happen? Have you inserted a part into these pads by mistake?

The very very first thing you’d want to check with the meter is that there’s no short between GND and +5V.

#10

thanks at all for your reactivity: next step: re-learn how to use a meter, order proper tools, learn to be be non dumb… happy to see that you don’t let noobs alone or that you d’ont take them from an high point of view… thanks a lot

#11

Hey, we’ve all been there - You did better than most though, in stopping before killing a digital board ^^

#12

yo flo… welcome to the shruthiversum™

#13

hello people…so i have check some things on the card, and no surprise there is really some problems… a short between gnd and +5V, shorts betwenn the atmega socket pins… I am on the point i want to restart from zero, with good tools and many more carefuly… i have now read a tons of solder tuto’s on the net, and plus the fact of wrong tool i really don’t have applied the good way to solder…

i will rebuy a card and the components new, cause i have not the time and the lust now to unsolder and completefully recheck the card…I’ll do it if i want to do a second shruthi or give to someone will be interested if not…

So i am on the point to order the iron and solder you suggest to me, but want maybe add some thing to the command

1-first in case of news errorswhat the best: solder pump or solder wick?? I think solder wick , but it seem 2 type of solder whick: just copper and tinplate?? could tou recommend me a product on this page???
http://www.electronique-diffusion.fr/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=tresse+a+dessouder&x=0&y=0

is it a need for a flux washer or can you really do it with water??? thanks a lot

2- in these photo what are the color of the leds under the light blue translucent case??? yellow or orange???
Are thes leds good???


there are 5 mcd…it’s 3mm leds

thanks a lot to you, hope a an answer becaus i am in the cyber thanks and byebye

#14

the photo i spoke is the first on the page:http://mutable-instruments.net/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=612&page=1

#15

as for the desoldering it’s good to have both, wick and pump. the pump is more likely to tear off pads if you’re not very careful (i lifted some yesterday) while the wick requires a little more practise, to find out how to do it the best way.

but you could also check visually for the bridge, with a magnifying glass for example. if i remember right you haven’t put too many parts on the board. just to remove excess solder while the part is supposed to stay in there i’d use the wick.

#16

and for pichenettes: as you suggest it to me, i want rebuy a digi card and all the component i have already solder, exactly all the components of the following step of the tuto

step1
R20 (68R, bleu, gris, noir, doré)
R19 & R18 (220R, rouge, rouge, noir, noir)
R14, R1 (10k, marron, noir, noir, red) – représentée comme 1k sur le dessin
R16 & R15 (2k2, rouge, rouge, noir, marron)

step 2
C1, C4, C8, C5 (100nF). La nouvelle version (v0.7) en comporte deux de plus, C9 et C10.
C6, C7 (18pF)

step 3
D1 diod

step 4
The quartz
R21 ADjustable resistor

step 5
atmega socket 40 pin

thanks to tell me if you have that on stock, plus maybe if you have some leds spacers(if you can)…
i could imagine you don’t have many time and that is not your role to provide support and do spare sourcing, so if it will not possible, i’llreally could understand.

in the case you have that please drop me a prise so i could put the right money on the main shruthi site order section thanks a lot!

#17

erased

#18

and one more: for what are the 6 avris pad on the mother board???

#19
  • Great that you got it running! Especially since this is your first project!
  • No problem to glue the loose caps. Email me if you want replacements.
  • The Lowww trimmer just shifts the cutoff frequency. With this setting you can choose whether your cutoff range will be 15Hz to 15kHz or 20 to 20kHz or 24 to 24Khz, etc… The filter can get unstable/distort with high resonance / cutoff, so you can limit the cutoff range with this trimmer to avoid the instability zone.
#20

ok it’s finished and it run… finally with good tools it’s very easy to solder, even for learn i think (it’s what i do lol)… first impression: i have just run the patchbank and … wow…it sound really great GREAT! far way better than i thought when i put the order! some tweak for understand that the ui is great (just have you ever think about putting encoders instead of knob, it would achieve a tweaking feel " a la elektron"?, or even a jump mode for the knob?? maybe it’s already here i don’t know the beast now…)and the thing really deep! you’re really a genius man! design programm, hardware, sound… i can’t even understand how an alone could do that i hope for you that you’l’l get your turn at the palais de tokyo, it’s really one of the best numeric art piece i have ever seen! you’re a genius![](… one of the banest bang for the buck i have ever had, evn if in my case i must add a bad iron, a new pcb and some component to the note cause of my dumbiness spirit…: that’s yhe price of a big lesson)

by the way just one question: just two of all the switch caps rest in place, other are loose: will it a problem to glue them? i dont know how to do…tahnks…

(for the story: after all (smr and digi) was solder and fully functionnal with orange leds, i think: why notu putting reds leds instead of orange for the two last… so go to desoldering act…and as i am a beginner, i fucked the pad… by chance i can reput a led in it and do the contact, so it’s cool and sound good now… my only error… for exactly the same result as my red and orange leds looks exactly the same when they are lit…)

by the way just two question if anybody could answer please:

  • I am at the tuning time and even with trying to do what is say o, the tuto i can’t understan what the loooowww parameter do… but as i understand from the doc it is not a real problem, isn’t it???
    ( by the way i have found a good soft to help tuning vcof: chromatic tuner for osx…)…

  • on all the switch caps only two keep in place( a red and a black)… is there a problem on glue them.??? really don’t know how to do…)

tahnks for all!