Total n00b - need help

[psylens]

Hi.

I recently ordered parts from Smash's shop to build a MidiBoxSID. This is my first electronics project and i'm pretty lost. I have spent more than 8 hours looking thru documentation and forum posts. All information i have found seems to assume some level of electronics understanding I don't have. I have soldered roughly half of the components to the board; Resistors (figured out how to identify them on my own) and jumpers (or whatever the J__ things are called) and the IC sockets - i have found the following links the most helpful:

http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/midibox_sid

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_walkthrough.html

http://www.avishowtech.com/mbhp/mbhp_coreR4d.html

Unfortunately the  core module guide http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html is of little use, as it's outdated (older board design), and basically skips from soldering a couple resistors and IC sockets to a pretty much finished board.

I need a bit more information in order to continue. I was hoping someone could help either give brief explanations, or point me to more informative links. A step by step of each part and it's function and relation to other parts would be ideal, however whatever you can show me would be wonderful.

Question 1: I need help with placement and orientation. I don't know how a capacitor, transistor, or Quartz thingy should be soldered to the board - i'm assuming the position or direction matters. C5 indicates polarity but the rest don't. T1 indicates 'E B C' on the board, but i don't know what those correspond to and how to identify them on the transistor. Also, the midi ports have 7 pins, but there are 12 holes on the board... i have no clue what the other 5 holes are for.

Question 2: How can i test my parts - my dogs got into the kit and chewed up a good number of parts - i'd like to test them to see if they still function properly. The capacitors are what i'm mostly concerned about - a couple look "squished". The resisotors, IC sockets, jumpers, etc look ok.

Thanks for your time,

.jt

[Smithy]

On smash's site he has a really great board map for each module.

Go here:

http://www.avishowtech.com/mbhp/info.html

Click on core module, and on sid module, or whatever module youre soldering components too.

If you hover the cursor over a component in the picture, it tells you what component it is.

Its really cool, and simple to follow.

Thats all i can help you on im afraid, i havent finished the optimisied C64 PSU circuit yet.  :P

my dogs got into the kit and chewed up a good number of parts

That made me laugh, lol! Sorry to hear about that.

[cimo]

hi and welcome

really welcome as in .. well come

most of the stuff you ask is covered on 1000 tutorials on the web, really i am not chasing you away from this forum, feel free to come back any time.

Unfortunately the  core module guide http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html is of little use, as it's outdated (older board design), and basically skips from soldering a couple resistors and IC sockets to a pretty much finished board.

you can t use a guide for this version if you got kits from smash, use his guide, it can t be explained any better

my dogs got into the kit and chewed up a good number of parts

we can t troubleshoot that before you send a picture of the dog

simone

use the wikipedia for all electronic parts, they are all simply covered

[DragonMaster]

Question 1: I need help with placement and orientation. I don't know how a capacitor, transistor, or Quartz thingy should be soldered to the board - i'm assuming the position or direction matters. C5 indicates polarity but the rest don't. T1 indicates 'E B C' on the board, but i don't know what those correspond to and how to identify them on the transistor. Also, the midi ports have 7 pins, but there are 12 holes on the board... i have no clue what the other 5 holes are for.

Capacitors : Depends, some are polarized, some not. Those that look like a can with two pins (electrolytic capacitors) are polarized usually, the different-colored strip on the label indicates the negative pin. Sometimes, other caps are polarized, there should be a strip or sign on the capacitor indicating that one pin is the negative or positive. It's not always clear. Ceramic disc capacitors aren't polarized.

Transistors : Pin location is very important here and sometimes similar and even models have different pinouts (!) between manufacturers(this is rare and shouldn't be the case here). Sometimes, the B C E signs are on the transistor's case, sometimes not. You need to look at the datasheet of the capacitors.

That's an easy Google search : "model number" datasheet

Or you can try http://www.datasheetarchive.com/ directly with the model number.

Note that the model number you see on the transistor is often a shortened version of the actual name,

they usually don't put the two letters on the beginning of the model name:

2N (You often see only four numbers on these transistor, apart from the BCE markings if they're present.)

or

2S (For transistor that have a model number that looks like

"A123" or

A

123 )

You have the full model number on transistors that start with BC, for example. This is to ID the most common types. Here's a transistor reading guide :

http://www.elexp.com/t_tranmk.htm

Anyways, when you need a datasheet for transistors, you need to type the whole model number to get some info.

Once you have the datasheet, you will find a drawing of the actual component and the pins will be identified as B, C and E. Place them in the appropriate hole. If Smash provided the parts with the PCBs, they should fit like on the PCB's silk screening.(If there are no PCB errors  ::) )

As for crystals, it's not important, they work both ways, like resistors.

The 12 holes for the MIDI connector are there to either accept different connector models or are simply used as soldered attach points for the connector(to handle more stress). Really, MIDI uses two pins on the DIN connector.

Question 2: How can i test my parts - my dogs got into the kit and chewed up a good number of parts - i'd like to test them to see if they still function properly. The capacitors are what i'm mostly concerned about - a couple look "squished". The resisotors, IC sockets, jumpers, etc look ok.

There you'd need a digital multimeter for most of the components.

Testing resistors is easy with the ohms test, the multimeter should display the same value as the resistor is supposed to have. A jumper will use the same procedure, except you should see around 0 ohms.

IC sockets should be OK unless you can't solder it or fit an IC in. You should replace the damaged capacitors, maybe some parts could be shorted in them now, which is bad.

[cimo]

hi again

all that DragonMaster writes is correct but (respect DM!) you don t need to look through datasheet and such, here:

http://www.avishowtech.com/mbhp/mbhp_coreR4d.html

together with the boards and parts you get from ST is all you need, some extra infos as on wikipedia for parts is optional but advised for a general overview.

Placing the components on the pcb is straight forward especially if you got all the parts from ST.It s like one of those toys for babies where you have to match geometric forms into holes  ;)

If you can t see any reference for polarized parts then.. they are not polarized and you don t need to worry about it

[DragonMaster]

T1 indicates 'E B C' on the board, but i don't know what those correspond to and how to identify them on the transistor

That's what he asked! ;D

cimo's right, no need to look at all the datasheets, the kit is quite simple to build. You're not working on breadboard right now. ;)

However, note that my earlier post can be useful if you need to replace a transistor with a non-exact replacement from your local store since your dog chewed a few parts or if you need to replace another component somewhere else it will help.

If you can t see any reference for polarized parts then.. they are not polarized and you don t need to worry about it

psylens, note that C4 is polarized as well, an electrolytic capacitor placed backwards explodes after a while (I almost had the experience once)