Author Topic: Aether Built Troubleshooting  (Read 2096 times)

Offline castortiu

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Aether Built Troubleshooting
« on: November 10, 2010, »
Solder looks pretty good and no bridges in the pins, but something definitely is wrong, I plugged the Aether to verify if I have power, and the LED (Red/Green) doesn’t turn on.

I measure the input of the 5V regulator (pin 1 and 2) and I get 11.8 Volts, I measure the output (pin 2 and 3) and it’s 0.

I don’t know... the PICKit doesn’t see the PIC when I connect to the ICSP and with Power the 5V regulator doesn’t produce any output. I may have fried the whole board may be because of temperature excess.

Which is weird is when I put power on the board the 6 LED blinks white once for about 20ms, after that nothing else happen.

The board doesn't have too many components.... I'll do one more check and start desoldering the regulator first then god help me with the PIC.

Cas.


« Last Edit: November 10, 2010, by castortiu »

Offline RJ

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Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2010, »
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Here is the first of 5 (If they all go this smooth (cross fingers...knock on wood)) Aethers ...
-JS

Congrats on the accomplishment. It looks very good and I hope it gives you good service and much happiness in the years to come.

 You have to admit once you get over the nerves it is pretty striaght forward. Is it as bright as you expect?

Just continue on with the same concern as I see people do well on the first of something and then get cocky and hurry and have issues with the next ones.

RJ
Innovation beats imitation - and it's more satisfying

Offline RJ

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Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2010, »
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Solder looks pretty good and no bridges in the pins, but something definitely is wrong, I plugged the Aether to verify if I have power, and the LED (Red/Green) doesn’t turn on.

I measure the input of the 5V regulator (pin 1 and 2) and I get 11.8 Volts, I measure the output (pin 2 and 3) and it’s 0.

I don’t know... the PICKit doesn’t see the PIC when I connect to the ICSP and with Power the 5V regulator doesn’t produce any output. I may have fried the whole board may be because of temperature excess.

Which is weird is when I put power on the board the 6 LED blinks white once for about 20ms, after that nothing else happen.

The board doesn't have too many components.... I'll do one more check and start desoldering the regulator first then god help me with the PIC.

Cas.


If the 5v reg has 12 v coming in off of the 7812 and nothing out it sounds like either the 5v reg is dead or there is a dead short on the output. the regs are tough and they will go in shutdown if this is the case so I would look for a short on the out of the reg. put a meter and check the resistence of the to pin you were looking for 5 v on.

Let me know. I would start a seperate thread though to troubleshoot it so it does not hijack his thread.

P.s. the pic will be fine. when you fix It I bet. you did swap the diode around right?

RJ
Innovation beats imitation - and it's more satisfying

Offline castortiu

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Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2010, »
BINGO!!!! Found the short cut, was a manual solder on the other side and not a SMD :P

Yes, I swapped the diode; the diode is fairly large so there was not a problem to reverse it.

Now it is working and the colors are awesome, but still run from channel 1 to 4, so far I didn’t have luck programming it to be used in another channel, neither with the Lynx Address utility or with Vixen.

If I leave the jumper on “Oper” instead “Prog” and run Lynx Utility and click on program I can see the Aether responding to DMX since I press stop button change the start channel and press program again then the Aether LEDs change to the intensity set by the start channel, so DMX to the board is good, also tried with Vixen and I can control individually the channels from 1 – 4 and no problem.

Now turn off Aether
Change jumper to “Prog”
Press “Program” (DMX flows)
Turn On Aether, (6 LEDs are blue at full intensity)
Wait 5 seconds
Turn Off Aether
Change Jumper to “Oper”
Turn On Aether and still responding to DMX channel 1. :(

Lets switch to troubleshooting thread to do not hijack this thread.

Cas.

Offline RJ

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Re: Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2010, »
Yahooooo!!!!

2 for 2!

Cas I will post in a day or so about programming the aether. It requires to be done just a tad different. If it is doing what you say then it is good to go trust me.

I want to write it up well and not in just a post that gets buried.

RJ
Innovation beats imitation - and it's more satisfying

Offline castortiu

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Re: Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2010, »
BINGO again!!!

I was using SSR method with the Lynx Adress utility and was a not go.

Then I tried LE Manual Program method with Lynx LE Utility 1.0 and it worked  ;D

Looks like the difference in the two methods is that the LE method requires to push the Program button AFTER the aether is turn on on PRG mode and not BEFORE, SSR method does it in the other way.

So.. Everything is good now.

I'll put everything in the case and make it wireless.

Also I got the lens like 2 months ago and they work really nice.

Thanks for the support, and lets the Aether shine this year.

Cas.

Offline RJ

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Re: Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2010, »
BUT IS IT BRIGHT ENOUGH FOR YOU!!!!!!

 ;D

RJ
Innovation beats imitation - and it's more satisfying

Offline batdive

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Re: Aether Built Troubleshooting
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2010, »
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BUT IS IT BRIGHT ENOUGH FOR YOU!!!!!!

 ;D

RJ

Yes it is, after my pic in my thread took my eyes awhile to readjust.  Havent had a chance to do the colors like Cas, but I am looking forward to that tonight.