I spent about 3 hours today working on installing caps and ICs. It was a bunch of
busy work so that I can get to the next major task: the toroids.
I started the first couple of toroids before supper tonight. They actually go pretty
quickly. I think that I completed 3 of them in about 30 minutes or so.
I have not been spending much time work on the K2 project lately. I am starting to
get nervous about having it done and ready for Field Day. I am going to need to start
working on the project a couple of nights per week to get back on track.
Tonight was a quick night at the bunch. I managed to to attach about 34 more capacitors
on the main RF board. Not too exciting but it is work that needs to be completed
to be able to move onto the next section.
I have about another hour of work and then it will be time to start winding the inductors.
It was hard to focus on the K2 project tonight. The combination of late spring snow
(which will probably cancel our camping trip this weekend) along with the 2008
recession (the constant bad economic news) has me in a kind of funk.
I am looking for a couple of sunny 70 degree days and
a road trip with my camera to straighten out my mood and to get me thinking about
spring in a positive way.
It has been a while since I have spent any time working on the K2 project. Spring
is here so I am getting nervous that it will not be done in time for camping and Field
Day activities. There are so many other things going on that it is hard to find time
to dedicate to this project.
Tonight I sorted capacitors for quite a while. I got through about 2/3 of the capacitors
on the RF main board. These are easy enough to install assuming that you can find
the value that you are looking for and the matching label on the circuit board.
Since I have not posted pictures in a while and I have a new camera I thought that
I would include some photos of the project so far.
RF Main Board
Sorted capacitors
RF Main Board
K2 Control Board
Someone browsing the Elecraft reflector saw some of my posts talking about my K2 project.
That person then followed my signature link to my website. In the midst of my K2 posts
he saw a note about my quest to obtain a copy of SSDRA and how nuts the eBay war had
become.
Roger WA7BOC made me an offer that I could not pass up. I appreciate
his help in advancing my reference library. This is a great book for understanding
the building blocks of RF design.
Roger is a great example of what I like about this hobby. Sharing information among
fellow hobbyists.
I squeezed in about 70 minutes of build time tonight while the boys played Xbox 360.
Page 50 is now complete. This was mainly a bunch diodes and TO-92 transistors. There
are about 30 pages of component assembly and alignment left. The RF board is about
1/3 to 1/2 populated now.
The K2 project is progressing nicely given that I am also working on the drywall
in the basement and building model rockets with my sons.
I removed the panels for the case and separated the boards. This signals the beginning
of the Assembly Part II phase of the project. I think that page 48 probably took about
an hour. There are 50+ resistors on that one page.
I am happy to be back in the assembly & soldering phase again.
I got a little too positive and it caught up with me. I was working through the initial
alignment process and ran into a problem with the side tone test. --No Side Tone.
It took 2 evenings, several emails, and a second set of eyes to resolve.
It turns out that tone used to come from U6-25 and is now coming from U8-4. You
have to know to change the value in the menu.
The second part of this issue was that someone had sent me an email early in the build
process with a note that R11 & R12 are no longer needed in the Control Board assembly.
I highlight that portion of the instructions and updated the notes in my book. --R11
or a jumper in-place of R11 is required for the side tone to work. It is in the middle
of the signal path.
When time permits I should be able to finish the initial alignment and move onto the
next portion of the assembly process.
The Elecraft Mailing List is great - I had two emails overnight that had the exact
answer to my problem.
Thanks to: Michael - DC0ZO & AL - WA6VNN
Switch off, then press and hold the keys 4,5,6 and switch
on. This will reset your K2 (see Manual page 102)
That resolved my issue. I only had a few minutes before work this morning to test
it... but things are looking good now. I will try to finish the initial alignment
tonight after work.
I managed to squeeze in another hour of bench time tonight. Between the distractions
of fixing my the boiler for my in-floor heat and my kids wanting to play XBox 360
I banged out a couple more pages.
I only ran into one issue... my kids were distracting me while I was trying to install
J2. I ended up putting J2 on the wrong side of the board. Once I realized the issue
and chased my son away for a couple of minutes I discovered that J2 was going to be
a challenge to remove from the board. I ended up having to hunt down my de-soldering
station. (I haven't used it since we moved into this house so that was a little bit
of a challenge as well.) I also ended up using my soldering station and some
compressed air (I have my compressor in the garage plumbed to the basement work bench)
to finish the remove process.
I am now on page 38 of 80. I am almost 50% through the assembly phase of the book.
The next section (maybe tomorrow if I am lucky) is to attach the side panels and front
control panel then move into the initial alignment phases.
