Foal of un1b0x

[uze6666]

I can say that the video generated by the Uzebox has been pretty battle tested and works everywhere a NES or SNES would work. Eh, with the help of my good ol' Tektronix scope's video sync mode, I literally copied Nintendo's timings to the nanosecond!

From your picture, looks like some lead maybe floating or something, check the solders on the video path. Did you test it on another TV or device that accepts composite? Also, you'll have to wire the S-VIDEO interface if your tv has it, the quality is really on another level.

I assume you don't have an oscilloscope?

[danboid]

Approx 2.5 years since I started my first attempt at building a Uzebox, I finally got video output working and played a couple of games on my Uzebox tonight. Its not fully finished yet as I'm still waiting for the SD card socket to arrive from the states which could be another another week or two yet before that arrives but its nice to know I shouldn't have to attempt a take 3.

Video wasn't working because I'd not soldered a couple of the capacitors in place. I should've posted pics of both sides of the PCB to this forum and maybe someone would've spotted that sooner.

[Artcfox]

Awesome! Congratulations on getting it built!

[danboid]

Thanks Artcfox!

Apart from the SD socket not having arrived yet, there's another more serious issue as its not turning on any more. Could it be my PSU at fault? Dodgy cap? Maybe a third try will be required.

[Artcfox]

Check all of your solder joints. Look for cold solder joints. They should all look shiny and have fillets on them where they join the two different pieces of metal. Did you heat up both pieces of metal, and let the metal of the component melt the solder, rather than touching the solder to the top of the iron and trying to "wipe it off" onto the components? You do need a tiny bit of solder on the tip first in order to conduct the heat, but typically you wipe it off onto a damp sponge or a brass scour pad before using it. You just need to wet the tip of the soldering iron. If the joints look bulbous and grey they might be cold solder joints, which aren't connected well and can change behavior depending on the temperature in the room/the components.

Take choseup photos of the solder joints and post them, if you have a USB microscope even better, use that. What soldering iron are you using? How long did you keep it touching the components? You only want the component leg to get hot enough to melt the solder without the component itself heating up too much and getting damaged, so you gotta be somewhat quick.

[danboid]

Thanks for the tips Artcfox!

TBH, its amazing I got it to work at all because it really is a mess.

My soldering iron is a cheapo no-name job and I think it was the source of a lot of my trouble in putting the UB together. I definitely want to buy a better soldering iron before I do any more electronics projects.

This forum is pretty limiting on uploads so I've uploaded a pic of the terrible underbelly of my poor UB to Google drive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DoWdSi ... share_link

[CunningFellow]

I think I might have said this before.

Get a flux pen.
Get some cotton buds (q-tips) and isopropyl alcohol
Use good quality solder. I have a preference for Multicore brand with 362 flux for general purpose work/rework.
Get some quality solder braid. I use Goot. I'd recommend just a roll of 3mm for this kind of through hole work.

Get all those solder joints that don't look like a nice shiny fillet and wick the solder away.
Clean the area around from burnt flux/contaminants with the alcohol and cotton buds.

Do the joint again. As ArtcFox says. make sure the tip of the iron is wet with fresh solder. Touch the tip of the iron to the pin and the solder pad. The apply the solder wire to the now hot pin.

[Artcfox]

Why are there what looks like component leads bridging multiple connections in two places? (Voltage regulator, and caps or crystal going to the chip?)

For reference, here is what the underside of mine looks like:

P_20230127_173934.jpg (3.43 MiB) Viewed 443 times

It is likely you have a newer revision board, but the solder connections should look shiny and have fillets.

I have an extra cap on the bottom of mine because I read the data sheet of one of the parts and it suggested that, so I added it.

How many Watts is your soldering iron? (It is an soldering iron and not a soldering gun right?) Post a pic of that too if you can.

[danboid]

This is my iron, claims to be 60W max.

iron.jpg (182.14 KiB) Viewed 442 times

[Artcfox]

That looks pretty good. Hopefully you get the joints all cleaned up. Definitely use the alcohol to clean off the used flux and brown residue first and then again after.