BATC Forum

Thanks Paul, That will keep me going for a while. Not yet on NB, on my to-do once I swap out the TXCO on my pluto. Its SO small...

Gareth

radiogareth wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:19 am

Thanks Paul, That will keep me going for a while. Not yet on NB, on my to-do once I swap out the TXCO on my pluto. Its SO small...

Gareth

Its a lot bigger than it's replacement.... you don't have to do this, the drift is not that bad if you use Simon's SDR Console to correct on RX and keep an ear of the TX.

Mike

I fitted a vctcxo as detailed in the link below - huge improvement but the vctcxo is very small a little fiddly to install.

https://www.qrz.com/db/DG9BFC

Thanks for the link, his closeup picture helps with orientation. I have (well, 'had') two of the oscillators, one escaped during inspection
I have magnification and a hot air rework, but as stated, its so small. Technique seems to be use flux and surface tension to locate it, then heat.
'Work in progress'.......
Gareth

You might want to try Chipquick to remove the original.

Mike

Got some, noted.....From what I've read its not worth moving it from its original pads. Adding thermal bulk and an alloy case will also help with short term variations as per the DL mods.
Gareth

Hi all,

I removed the original TCXO in my pluto my firstly kaptoning up the stuff around the LO, then using a hot-air rework gun set at about 300C to heat the area, followed by tinning the top of the TCXO with a soldering iron, this melts all the solder and you can just push it to one side, then wick the pads clean etc. I mounted by new LO away from the original spot as there were reports of localised board heating there. I used 0.35mm ECW for the connections as per the pic below;
BTW on the DATV topic, a new firmware has been released to beta- testers which now supports GPIO PTT keying output when an input RTMP stream is present.
I've added an opto + 4r7, the opto output controls the PTT stuff on the PA's and works perfectly.

regards,

Paul M0EYT.