Tag Archives: hardware

Soldering Frenzy!

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I found some time to solder some more of the group buy purchases which came in a couple months ago.  So far I soldered one Renard64XC and 8 SSRNeons.  They are similar to the SSRez, but with two neon lamps so you are made aware when 120VAC is present.

Picture of the first completed Renard64XC5 First Completed SSRNeon Completed SSRNeon

I was able to complete the Renard64XC in one evening in a couple of hours. Two nights later I was able to complete 8 of the SSRNeons in a few hours. I was able to test them briefly by using the Simple Renard Tester 8 channels at a time. I moved one SSR through each group as I tested dimming across all channels. There appear to be no problems with the Renard64XC, although I have yet to try a full sequence that will stress the current drawn and could find issues.

It Shouldn’t Be This Easy

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I ordered 4 Mighty Mini’s from the recent group buy which came early, and went fast. The first time I participated in a group buy was definitely a positive one. I can say Seth Dunn “dunnsr” on DoItYourselfChristmas.com is quick! This buy recently closed and I already have my stuff! I am pleased with the turn-around time on this one. Good thing, because I feel like I’m behind with hardware, and it’s only March.

For those of you that don’t know what “Mighty Minis” are, they are RGB+W (Red/Green/Blue plus White) flood lights using 8mm LEDs. They are controllable on a per color basis and are driven by 24V DC at around 200ma per channel (color) when using 1/2 watt LEDs and 600ma per channel when using 1 watt LEDs. They create neat effects when shone upon a house, or tree in sequence with the rest of the show. Here’s a quick demo video that the creator uploaded a couple years ago:

The PCB was designed to go in a certain “Cooper” brand floodlight that can be had for about $15 at Lowe’s, but I couldn’t pass up a deal somebody mentioned about a month ago on DIYC. Home Depot had cheap “Workforce” 500 watt flood lights for five dollars and change on clearance. Tiffany went to our local Home Depot, which didn’t have any, but had somebody call a few. Just a few miles a way in Escondido, we were able to snag some.

I started disassembly of the flood last night and did some fitting today for a “holder”. Now, the part that shouldn’t be this easy: I wanted to use things I had in the garage already to make a holder/stand-off for the PCB. I hit the parts bin and found that with 2 small angle-brackets, 2 15/64 extruded plastic plugs, and 4 #6-1/2″ sheet metal screws I was able to get something working. I used the lamp holder bracket that came in the flood, and the parts I mentioned which will suspend the PCB inside the enclosure perfectly. It’s almost as if everything were designed for the pieces I have.

My only concern with the holder is the extruded plastic plugs. I have read that the “Mighty Mini” produces quite a bit of heat, so I will do some testing to make sure the extruded plastic plugs can deal with the heat. If need be, I will spend a little more time/money making something better that can withstand more heat.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, here’s a few pictures I took in the garage of the floods, bracket/stand-off design, and Bare PCB.

Flood Light

New Renard SS24 Boards

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I was lucky enough to finish off my “SS” boards by purchasing two separate boards from DIYC members who are changing their displays next year.  They were purchased through DIYC which meant the sellers sold them as hardware cost only.  I paid the same as I would for a bare PCB and parts, no labor costs.

One is a Frank’s Renard SS24 v3.3 board which is very well built.  The board has a grounding setup and all, so everything is using 3-prong cords and properly grounded.  This board came in an enclosure and has some nifty labels I will be looking into for the units I’m building.

The other is a Renard SS24 HC board, which is also a Frank Kostyun design.  It’s similar in look/layout to the Ren24SS v3.3 board, and similar functionality to the standard Renard ss24, although provides support for up to 6 amps per channel.  This will come in handy when using incandescent lights, specifically my C7s around the roof-line of the house.  This one still hasn’t arrived as the seller has real winters, unlike us in “sunny” California.

One of the plans I have for testing, sequencing, etc. will be to affix lights to the rafters in the garage that I can use when testing hardware/sequences/etc.  I’m sure at some point I’ll have a horrible video of our messy garage blinking and flashing.  Stay tuned!

Progress

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Tuesday night I was able to get started on soldering the Renard boardsw are starting with. I have two 24 channel boards giving us 48 total channels for now. I hope to buy at least one 64 channel controller with a group purchase between now and Christmas 2011. For now, here are a couple of pictures of the start.

Started Soldering Renard SS24 Renard SS24 Close Up Renard SS24 Bottom

Since I’ve never soldered PCBs before, this was a new task. I already have a really nice soldering iron, but I bought a fine point tip, and some fine solder for this work. I actually found it much easier than I thought it would be. The fine tip, and accurate temperature control made it relatively easy. For now, I don’t have a PCB holder, so I would either put the board on my lap, my work bench, or clamp it with the alligator type clamps depending on where I was working on the board.

In about 3 hours I have all resistors, diodes, LEDs, caps, fuse holders, and IC sockets soldered to the board. I think all I have left are the triacs, RJ45, DB9 connectors, and the screw terminals. I should be able to complete those with another hour of work, then I can start tinkering with the software side of things. I will need to program the PIC microcontrollers, get some “tests” going with Vixen on a windows machine. Then I will start looking at the rs485 protocol and my own software to sequence/control the show. I don’t like the fact that vixen requires windows and hope I can easily “record” the output and convert to something I can plop into eeprom on an arduino or similar MCU.

For now, I’m just excited to actually have hardware ready to play with. I will probably get a little “test” setup in the garage so I can visually see lights blinking and flashing. I spend a lot of time reading, learning, etc. on DIYC where I heard this gem: “It’s not a hobby. It’s an obsession. It is only a hobby for 6 months.” We’ll see if we make it past the hobby stage, stay tuned!