One Dongle Complete

[deanathpc]

Well I rev'd my order from Mouser yesterday (they delivered Friday but I was at work).  So I decided to to use 1 of 2 boards I recv'd from a member here and do the assembly.  Wow with all the years I have in soldering it's amazing what you remember after not doing it for awhile and what you forget.  While in the military I had some NASA quality soldering but over the years well not so much.

Anyway..  It's done.  I ordered my PicKit3 off E-bay yesterday so once that comes in I can program the chip and see if my soldering is good enough to make the thing go!  Now I wish I had ordered that programmer months ago! lol  Yeah I'm impatient I admit to it.

Thanks to everyone here for the wealth of information and for RJ and the coop managers for their time and efforts.

Now waiting on the Express coop stuff to come in and my dongle cases and I should be all set!   Well aside from wanting an SSR4 coop now.  That reminds me I need to order those parts for the Freestyle... hmmmm  Off to mouser.com I guess! 

Dean

[trekster]

Congratulations on the dongle build.  Sounds like you are on track for "lights On" 2011.  I am glad the see that we have a bunch of others wanting the ssr4's in the current poll.  I was wanting to see a coop on them and it looks promising. 

Ron

[deanathpc]

Well that's what I'm hoping for.   But I need more lights!! lol

I'm hoping to get my freestyle board running that way I'll have more channels to play with until another express coop comes around.  I just need a boat load of SSR4's!

[lineman]

congratulations on the dongle build

[LondoB5]

I know what you mean about lights. I am on track to spend about $2000 on electronics this year before buying lights or smart strings.
Needless to say, my current amount of lights is sorely lacking considering everything I want to do this year.
I may have to scale back all of my plans because of cost and / or time to build all this stuff.
Its gonna be a great year for DLA and DIY.

[deanathpc]

Well not so complete..  Got my PICKIT3 in today and from what everything says the chip is programmed..  But when I plug it in to the computer the red LED flashes a couple times then it's dark.  And the computer doesn't recognize the USB device despite the software drivers installed.  I'm at a loss.  This sucks....

[tbone321]

The pic has nothing to do with the computer recognizing the device.  The pic doesn't even need to be installed on the board for that to happen.  Did you install the drivers for before plugging in the dongle?

[deanathpc]

yup sure did.. and after some time spent researching on here discovered I was missing 5 VDC at a cap.  Then for some reason I plugged it back in and low and behold the computer recognized it, got the confirmation sound and both LED's came to life.  Haven't done any testing beyond that one though..   Well besides running a quick show in Vixen to which the green LED didn't flicker or anything.

Being an electronics tech by trade I think I have me either a or some cold solder joints.  Gonna go and try out the dongle again and see what happens.

Dean

[deanathpc]

Well just messed around with it some more...  I have a green LED flickering now..  So I think I'm good..  Just need some Expresses or parts for my Freestyle and I should be good..