Author Topic: Little help with DMX Dongle  (Read 3815 times)

Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #15 on: October 17, 2011, »
Question:

Are there parts on the dongle that are susceptible to damage or failure?   I don't have much else to try without starting a fresh board and potentially repeating the same mistake.  I was very careful in the handling, so I don't think I had a ESD problem.
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Offline TAdamsOK

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #16 on: October 17, 2011, »
Hmm, not very scientific, but I would swap cables, USB ports on the computer (if you havent' already), then digress into changing chips (pics etc) to see if I could get either to work.  It is unlikely that both have bad pics or a 485/6n137.

Offline TAdamsOK

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #17 on: October 17, 2011, »
Looks like you have a max480 where there should be a st485.  There are several solder joints i would touch up as well.

Shoot me a pm with your email and I'll send you the pic I put some circles on the joints I would retouch if you want. 
« Last Edit: October 17, 2011, by TAdamsOK »

Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #18 on: October 17, 2011, »
You. Are. Good.   ...and you have great eyes!!

There is at least one lesson here: "Don't order 7 different kits at the same time, and multiple quantities of each.  Mouser does not separate them for you." :)   ...I know, I know... there are somethings in a DIY which should be in my own hands. :)

I made the mistake because the bag I selected had RS-485 listed among the other verbiage describing the Maxim part.

It works now, and it works nicely.

Thanks to all of you for your help!!

Steve
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Offline dmaccole

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2011, »
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There is at least one lesson here: "Don't order 7 different kits at the same time, and multiple quantities of each.  Mouser does not separate them for you." :)   ...I know, I know... there are somethings in a DIY which should be in my own hands. :)

I've found that you can add whatever text you want in the "Customer Part #" field in the Mouser cart ... I add a BOM from one project to the cart, go through and put "Dongle" or whatever into all the customer part # fields, then add another project to the cart and put in "SSR8" into all the blank fields (since they come out ordered peculiarly), watching that the order quantity didn't increase (if it did, then the part is used in both projects and in those i put in "BOTH" or "Dongle/SSR8" or something similar).

Then, when the items arrive from Mouser, I sort them out into appropriate project boxes or bags or drawers or whatever.

The other Mouser trick you always must do is to look at everything in the cart: go back and open up each item's original order page: sometimes while you may only need five of a part, the price break on 10 is so good that you get 10 for cheaper than five.

HTH.

\dmc
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The only thing more dangerous than a software engineer with a soldering iron or a hardware engineer with a compiler is a liberal-arts major with either.
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Offline Steve Gase

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2011, »
great advice, thanks!!
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Offline rimist

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Re: Little help with DMX Dongle
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2011, »
wish I had read that advice 15 minutes ago!
- Rimist