Page 5 of 7

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 2:22 am
by CunningFellow
It also looks from the photo you are using lead free solder. SnPb is much much easier for a beginer/learner to use.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:39 pm
by danboid
I'm happy to report that I took my Uzebox to a much more electronically experienced friend to look at today and he identifed that it was the power diode being poorly soldered that was causing my power issues. My Uzebox powers on reliably now so I'm just awaiting the arrival of the SD socket before I can get it fully finished. I got to play against him on my game (IKD) on a real Uzebox for the first time and annoyingly he won.

Cool to see that the Uzebox can be run off a 9V battery!

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:57 pm
by Artcfox
Excellent! I am glad he was able to identify the problem, and get it resolved. :geek:

Since I am paranoid, after soldering the SD socket (before powering it on!), I would check for continuity between all of the SD card pins and where they are supposed to be connected to, and make sure there is not continuity where there shouldn't be. At least when I was trying to hand solder my microSD card sockets, sometimes I would get hard to see bridges under the shield.

Glad it is coming along for you, good luck!

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 6:35 pm
by uze6666
But what happened to the underside of you PCB with all those scratches and dents? Looks like it went to war or something! :lol:

Anyway, congrats for making it work reliably!

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2023 2:11 am
by danboid
My SD card sockets finally arrived today and I'm happy to report I got it attached without trouble and my SD card works fine with it so I finally have a fully functional Uzebox! The lightpipe has been printed but I haven't been given it yet, that's all tha remains of the case to sort out.

The bootloader works as well as I could hope really, I can't complain about the flashing/loading time. This second attempt at building a Uzebox has took over a year somehow but I think its my coolest computer/console so it was worth the effort.

I wonder how many Uzebox owners there are in the UK apart from me? I don't think there'll be that many. I'm the first that I know of.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2023 3:34 am
by Artcfox
Congrats!

Just so you are aware, there are some games that require their data files on the SD card to be contiguous (Tornado 2000, 8-way scrolling demo, etc). So, short of reformatting it with the official sdcard.org formatter on a Windows PC, one way to keep things contiguous is to just never delete or overwrite files on the SD card, and maybe use the command line to copy files there, so you don't get weird temp files that get deleted after in case some GUI file managers do that. You should be able to safely rename a file, or its extension so it is no longer a .uze extension if you don't want it to show up in the list.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:42 pm
by danboid
Thanks Artcfox! It was a fun project. The Uzebox is the coolest thing I've ever built. I hope it becomes more popular and we start seeing more games released soon. I'm going to do at least one more.

Looking back on the process now, the hardest part of building it was soldering the AD725 onto the board. Had my electronics engineering professional mate not done that bit for me then I don't think I would've been able to build the standard Uzebox. If he or my colleague who wants to build a Uzebox ends up having to solder a AD725 in place then I'll try to film it then we might able to get a link to such a video added to the next revision of the Uzebox assembly guide.

The current assembly guide is written for those who bought a Uzebox PCB with the AD725 already attached. I was too initimitated to try soldering its tiny legs myself. I feel a video is required to demonstrate how the AD725 is attached for soldering beginners.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2023 12:31 am
by Artcfox
Since switching to all surface mount components in my hobby projects, the easiest way is to just order a kaptop or stainless stencil to place over the board, and squeege solder paste through the stencil, and then using tweezers drop the component into place, and then put it into a reflow oven with the correct solder paste temperature curve, but it's possible with a steady hand to solder them by hand (as long as it has legs that aren't completely under the part).

Look on YouTube for how to solder SMD components.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:46 am
by uze6666
I also use a stainless steel stencil to apply solder paste correctly but use a hot air desoldering station to solder the chip. Works pretty well for just one chip.

Re: Foal of un1b0x

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2023 2:18 am
by Artcfox
uze6666 wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:46 am I also use a stainless steel stencil to apply solder paste correctly but use a hot air desoldering station to solder the chip. Works pretty well for just one chip.
Nice! I blew some 0402 SMD components off a board with a hot air reflow station, so I will either just use a cheap quartz board pre-heater to reflow low temp solder paste, or a $29 Black and Decker toaster oven that I modified into a reflow oven using a Whizooo ControLeo Reflow Oven kit I picked up.
P_20230218_202017.jpg
P_20230218_202017.jpg (3.98 MiB) Viewed 502 times