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Hardware => Lynx EtherDongle => Lynx Conductor => Topic started by: RJ on November 11, 2012,
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I have been a way from the forum for a while. I was talking care of both work and family issues as well as needed a break from the forum. This time of year can be hard for me when I work all year on christmas stuff and am not able to have a show of my own do to the time I put into the forum.
I am very sorry to see the conductors have shipped and a number of people are having issues with the soldering on their Card sockets. not sure what changed in the process but at this point it does not matter.
PLEASE CHECK THEM before proceeding on your assembly
If you have an issue you have two options.
If you feel confortable then put flux on the pins and turn you iron up hot. Clean the tip well so it is clean but does not have any solder left on it. This will allow you to heat while not adding any additional solder on the pins. They have the right amount. It appears something must have failed in my temp controlled oven and the ones with issues never got up to full tempeture. So with this clean tip and flix on the pins touch you iron tip stright down on the pins and it does not matter is you are covering more than one. let them heat up until you see the solder flow. Get it 1 second longer and remove the tip. Move over to the next pins and do the same. You should not create bridges as their is no extra solder to create them with. Only if you add solder (DON'T) will you have this issue.
Now if you are not confortable doing this or you do it and get bridges you can not fix. Then pm me and I will have you send it to me to fix. Just do not bend your pins as this is not something I can always fix. you will have to push sideways with the iron to do this so it is not normally an issue.
RJ
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Thank you for everything you do RJ! I really appreciate the sacrifice you made for our community. It was heartening to see members helping other members to solve the problem. I also learned a new skill. ;D
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What if a socket was damaged by a floating part during shipping?
I am going to try to bend them back but it will be a very delicate operation. What if I am unable to get them bent back into postition and soldered?
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just an hour ago i started my first conductor and found all of the pins floating above the pcb and i tried to fix it.
then i read your posting. :(
there appears to be a noticeable gap between the pins and the board. the CF holder is firmly down, but there is still a gap.
i used flux first, but unfortunately i added solder and ended up with a bridge that covered 8 pins.
i'll try a clean tip and see if there is anything i can do. :)
btw, i have 4 more boards that appear to have the same floating pin problem.
...just tried a clean tip on the second board... careful work, but I think I got this one right. :D
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just an hour ago i started my first conductor and found all of the pins floating above the pcb and i tried to fix it.
then i read your posting. :|
there appears to be a noticeable gap between the pins and the board. the CF holder is firmly down, but there is still a gap.
i used flux first, but unfortunately i added solder and ended up with a bridge that covered 8 pins.
i'll try a clean tip and see if there is anything i can do. :)
btw, i have 4 more boards that appear to have the same floating pin problem.
Same here... <fp.
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There were gaps on my boards also, but when I heated up the pin and pressed down, the solder melted and bridged the gap. One pin didn't have any solder on it so I had to add a little. Which created a bridge. :( But since I had to clean up the other bridges I had created, what's one more. ;D
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I have been a way from the forum for a while. I was talking care of both work and family issues as well as needed a break from the forum. This time of year can be hard for me when I work all year on christmas stuff and am not able to have a show of my own do to the time I put into the forum.
Let me know when to come down and give you a hand - Would be more than happy to <res.
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My first conductor board had all the pins floating as well. Touching a soldering iron to each of the leads very carefully seems to correct the situation.
It is all assemlbed but I had torn down my test jig and will have to wait until I get my mega tree up to do a conductor test.
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Can someone recommend a flux to get for this purpose?
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i purchased a flux pen from mouser when I purchased parts for another kit.
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All pins floating on mine. Wasn't too hard to fix. A light coat of flux and touching the iron worked pretty good for me. 90% confident I got it done correctly. Maybe a bit freaky but I had the best results putting the tip between 2 pins and dragging toward board. Woohoo, first time smd!
I just used a tiny bit of old Radio Shack rosin flux with a qtip. Tested good for continuity on about 10 pins but gave up trying to do the whole shebang. Is there any other way (easier) to test? Worried about bridges I can't see in my el cheapo magnifier/holder.
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I couldn't come up with a good test for bridging. Some of the pins are common (voltage, ground, etc) so without a schematic it will be hard to test.
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All pins on mine have been touched up and check for continuity but the control panel still won't see the conductor. I guess the only thing left could be a bridging issue but I am stuck at that point
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pm sent
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All pins on mine have been touched up and check for continuity but the control panel still won't see the conductor. I guess the only thing left could be a bridging issue but I am stuck at that point
I suppose I'm at the same place as Kjam and Sabie - PM sent
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are you CF properly loaded with all of the required files?
The control panel won't properly communicate with the conductor until you have them loaded.
All files have to be 8 or less characters long
1) at least one *.seq and/or *.mp3 file on the compact flash (CF) card,
2) created a password, which will create a password.dat file on the CF card,
3) create at least one show, which will create a file *.sho on the CF card, and
4) schedule a show to run, which will create a playlist.dat file on the CF card.
All four of these must be met before the control panel will see the Conductor.
Thanks Denny aka dcwehw99
Never erase files on the CF. You must format the card and then reload the files from your computer. Also don't rename any files on the CF, do that first on you computer.
Rick R.
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Could some offer some clarity on the "never erase files on the CF card"?
So if I want to change things on the conductor/card I should remove CF from conductor, put into a pc, reformat and load changes? Basically, make changes with the files on a folder on your pc to load onto the CF after reformatting?
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Correct
Sent from my Thunderbolt using Tapatalk 2.
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Could some offer some clarity on the "never erase files on the CF card"?
So if I want to change things on the conductor/card I should remove CF from conductor, put into a pc, reformat and load changes? Basically, make changes with the files on a folder on your pc to load onto the CF after reformatting?
Yes as per RJ. Never erase or rename anything on the CF card. Only format it.
Before reformatting copy the files to your computer and after formatting the CF then move back any files you don't need to change (i.e.: password, seq, mp3, etc). If you are not going to use a seq or mp3 then recreating the playlist (schedule) is what you need to do. Of course if you want to change your password then don't copy that back to the CF
Rick R.
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Locking topic as it is being used for other than its intent.
RJ