Well, guess it had to happen...

[jwilling]

So... just finished assembling my #6 controller. (blue board - deluxe kit) Went thru the usual pre-start checks, board looks good, no obvious assembly fubars...

So, put power to it! (was 5 for 5 so far) LED starts flashing, but... Almost immediately, and in an odd stuttering two beat sequence. Don't think I've seen this one before. :shock:

Drop power, and look over everything again. Hmmm... Unit ID switches set to 00. I seem to remember something about that, oh yeah... Board reset. Should be harmless enough.

Set the Unit ID switches to 06, and power back up... Hmmm... No LED...
10 seconds... 30 seconds... They don't usually take this long to wake up...

Switch the Unit back to 00, there is the two beat pattern again... Anything else, no LED.

This sound familiar to anyone?
-jim

[LightORamaDan]

The two beat pattern is typical for a reset. Some controllers will have a 7 beat pattern but regardless when you are on the "00" you will get a fast pulse from the LED.

So it sounds like the processor is working okay. But when you try and go "live" with the processor it dies.

It sounds like there is a short somewhere on the board. This could be near the Unit ID switches and when you set them to a non-zero value you get a short and power drop.

It could also be a short on one of the output pins of the processor. When it tries to go high or low the short causes a power drop. I know you most likely have done this but carefully check for solder bridges on your connections.

[jwilling]

Ah, yes... We share that others may avoid repeating our doofuses!

No shorts, I had stared at that until I was well past cross-eyed! :shock:

Only to find smoething much more nefarious! ...and more painfully obvious...

Resistor network R2 was in backwards...

Little minor surgery, and it is feeling much better now! :smile:

Thanks! and now, back to our frantic sequencing!
-jim