DATV-Express Project - January update report

[KenW6HHC]

Art WA8RMC continued to test the production batch of the MiniTiouner-Express hardware units. A reliability issue was found when testing most units for extended temperature operations. The regulators would stop...the power LED would turn OFF. Some units would run three days at elevated temperatures then stop….and then start-up again after cooling down to room temp. As you might expect, we suspected everything….first maybe a bad regulator IC lot, then maybe some wrong/mislabeled passive components surrounding the voltage regulator, and currently all bad units seem to run well again by “repairing by re-fluxing the IC and re-flowing the solder”.


First production lot unit using robot-assembled MiniTiouner-Express PCBA with Serit NIM. The included cover is not shown.

Art needs to confirm that this “poor soldering” really is the root-cause…but Art has a medical issue that will impact his efforts that will be delayed until he is back on his feet.

Ken W6HHC has been working on the MiniTiouner-Express User Guide since he received his first MiniTiouner-Express unit for testing. Ken has just finished sending out a draft for review by the project team. When the project team has added corrections and suggestions, Ken will ask Jean Pierre F6DZP to review the User Guide for correctness and comments.

When Art WA8RMC is confident with the extended temperature operations of the MiniTiouner-Express units and Ken has incorporated the review comments of the User Guide…the FOR SALE announcement will be posted. The only change is that USA shipping pricing was raised to $7.00 (instead of $6) at the beginning of 2018.


“Project speed set to slow” …. de Ken W6HHC

[G4GUO]

Ken,

Rather than creating a separate topic for each monthly update might it not
be better to have a single DATV-Express Updates Topic and post all the
updates to that?

Just a suggestion

- Charles G4GUO

[KenW6HHC]

Hi Charles G4GUO,

Excellent suggestion. Will do next month,

73...de Ken W6HHC