2019-04-11 (Th) Electronic Wind Chimes EWC

Three of the screens worked when they were all powered. This was good news since that meant there were no catastrophically shorted wires and of the four that were just added, one of them worked immediately. One problem was an error in the testing software which did not send a name to screen three, but this was the least of the issues. All the screens had a name and a counter. The first screen started at zero at startup, and the rest of them started at 1000, 2000, 3000, etc., depending on which number it was.
Three working screens

Problems were tracked down using a continuity detector. One of the probes was attached to a metal pick which could reach more awkward angles and scrape away some of the residual flux.
"specialty probe"

The most common problem was missing solder joints which all three problem boards had at least one of. One of the boards had a couple of crossed wires that made it look like it was receiving data intermittently. Comparing junctions to one another, and even measuring continuity between points between boards, made debugging simpler than figuring out where all the wires were supposed to go on the controller alone.
Missing solder joint
Crossed blue and black wires

All the screens were fixed, and I'm pretty sure I turned off the soldering iron. Everything was propped up on some LEGO blocks so it would be easier to photograph. Getting the screens to look good and still have a clean background was not easy, so the picture below has the screen images taken from a low-light photo, and the rest used a flash.
Six working screens


The rest of the posts for this project have been arranged by date.

First time here?

Completed projects from year 1
Completed projects from year 2
Completed projects from year 3
Completed projects from year 4
Completed projects from year 5
Completed projects from year 6

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2019-03-30

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