I'm not getting notifications for this thread for some reason. The speaker relay I have designed needs to work with one of our amp control boards. We don't have the bridged amp version listed on our website but we do offer a through hole version for the same price as the standard boards. Here's a schematic of the speaker relay board. It's basically the same relay but with an extra DC detector circuit added.
I've read through the entire 1600 postings and decided to buy a control board, two dc protection boards and 4 temperature boards. I had a couple questions and had a reply back extremely fast along with a comment that one of the parts was obsolete and he would send one with the boards. I don't know about anyone else, but you just don't find that kind of customer care now days. I can't give Jeff and Valery enough atta boys! Btw, I'm now thinking about buying the power supply boards.
I have started assembling my Amp control board version 5.3. I've installed U9, Y2, R10, C9 and J10. I'm getting the dreaded "Avrdude: Initialization failed, rc=-1. I checked the schematic against the BOM and there is a difference. The BOM shows .01 uF, the schematic shows .1uF. Would that create my issue? BTW, I had to reposition U9 about 4 times before I got it right and I had Y2 installed backwards.
Y2 can be installed either direction, it doesn't matter. If you connect the programming cable backwards the worst that can happen is your PC might disable the USB port until you reboot it, nothing can be hurt on the control board. 0.1uF and 0.01uF caps really can be interchanged without any difference in most digital circuits. On the sensor circuits it might delay activation by a couple microseconds, nothing huge. For decoupling either is fine.
What are you trying to do when you are getting the error? Did you install the bootloader on the microcontroller with a ATTinyUSB? That needs to be loaded before anything else will work.
What are you trying to do when you are getting the error? Did you install the bootloader on the microcontroller with a ATTinyUSB? That needs to be loaded before anything else will work.
With the ATTinyUSB connected verify that you have 5V present across C9. If not make sure you have the power jumper installed on your ATTinyUSB. Also the green light should be on in the ATTinyUSB. If it goes out when you connect it there's a short on your Amp Control board or your ATTinyUSB is connected backwards.
If you have power present double check the solder connections to U9. If all that's good it's likely a driver issue on your computer which is pretty common. They can be a pain to get to write the first time, but after that it usually goes pretty well.
If you have power present double check the solder connections to U9. If all that's good it's likely a driver issue on your computer which is pretty common. They can be a pain to get to write the first time, but after that it usually goes pretty well.
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I have 5V across C9. I have the jumper installed on the USBtinyISP. My USBtiny has two red lights, the PWR led is on and the busy led blinks when it tries to program. I'll try removing the driver and reinstalling it first. VERY likely I have something not soldered right, my first time working with surface mounts. I have the chip indexed correctly, but very hard for my old eyes to see. What driver would you recommend?
First attempts at surface mount usually ends in panic thinking you damaged something but the parts are actually quite robust and very forgiving. Everything looks correct in the picture but I can't really see the solder connections on the pins very well. If you have a large screwdriver tip for your soldering iron, use that. Wet the tip lightly, set it on a few pins at the same time and slide the iron away from the IC off the end of pads. The solder will wet everything out and will follow the iron out to the outer edge of the pads. Between the surface tension of the solder and it's attraction to heat it does most of the work for you.
It's pretty tough to get the alignment perfect unless you use an oven or hot air to solder. To get good alignment all the pins need to have molten solder at the same time. The IC will actually float on the solder and will align itself due to the surface tension of the solder. You just need to be relatively close so no pins overlap two pads. There's only 5V present so a few thousandths of an inch clearance between pins is all you need.
And use extra flux to get good surface tension in the molten solder. And use the minimum of solder to avoid bridging.
If you are serious about surface-mount then solder-paste, an oven and a hot-air rework station are essential. A converted cheap sandwich toaster is a good entry-level approach BTW.
I have a hot-air rework station and I have some flux and solder paste. I Used the paste to solder the chip the first time. I'll add a nice bead of flux all the way around and then follow the heating profile with my hot-air to get it to reflow. I do have a toaster oven, but would need to add an accurate heat control to use it. I have built a lot of heat controls for my homebrewing rig, not an issuse, just need time and money. Probably step up to a ramp and soak pid to control it so I can program in reflow profiles. Would double as an oven to toast oak for other endeavors.
You can cheat with the toaster oven. Do a ramp up around 250 degrees for a couple minutes, then crank it up and watch for the smoke from the solder paste to come out. That's a sure sign it's reached a high enough temperature to melt the solder. On mine about 15 seconds after the smoke starts I shut it off and let it cool down with the door closed for 10 minutes. A temperature controller would be nice but that takes time to build.
Hot air rework does a nice job but the board should be pre-heated on a hot plate before hand or it will warp when it cools due to localized heating.
Hot air rework does a nice job but the board should be pre-heated on a hot plate before hand or it will warp when it cools due to localized heating.
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