Troubleshooting

Tony
Site Admin
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:05 pm

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by Tony »

You should be OK finishing most of it off now but only fit the 2 rightmost nixies (the symbol tubes) as the rest won't light until the sensor is replaced, just in case there's a problem with the LEDs. If you can get them to light '%H' then the rest should work ok once you have the new DHT11.
samwichse
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:00 am

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by samwichse »

The rest of the LEDs lit when I left it on more than a moment with the temp/humidity sensor removed and changed it to the demo mode where the lights run back and forth... so I went ahead and tested it with all the nixies and coil in place unsoldered (dangling upside down while holding the board by the edges with all the nixie legs sticking through and just barely not touching one another) and they lit! That was super sketch and a huge shock hazard :-P.

I tried putting that half-melted sensor in the right way and it's still working and giving humidity measurements that agree well with my thermostat. No heating in the correct orientation.

It's now complete except the final case sanding, thanks for the help with the troubleshooting
66LUX
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:55 am

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by 66LUX »

Hi Tony,

I just built my third one of these (this one's mine).
I found a small error in the updated instructions.
R29 isn't mentioned which is needed to light up D17.
Where the installation of the 1K2 resistors is shown, the photo shows six resistors circled but the text only mentions five.
If it wasn't circled on the photo, it would be very difficult to work out where it went because the PCB has two places for R29.

Cheers, Dale.
Tony
Site Admin
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:05 pm

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by Tony »

Thanks for pointing that one out, I thought this was another consequence of me messing around with the instructions to remove the v1 parts but it appears it's always been like that.

Three kits?, you should have asked for a bulk discount :D
User avatar
nroberts
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:39 am
Contact:

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by nroberts »

Hello everyone

I just wanted to say that, with Tony's help, my kit is working perfectly (my problem was no Nixies lighting up and it turned out to simply be a dry joint on R10 - how humiliating :cry: )

Incidentally, I also needed a short length of black heatshrink over the IR LED to stop it getting out of control. It was fine right up until the last top thick ring on the case without the heatshrink, then it went unstable.

I shall keep an eye on this board to see if a barometric pressure mod comes available in the future :)

Thanks Tony for a fantastic kit and great firmware.

Neville
samwichse
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:00 am

crashes

Post by samwichse »

Hello,
I'm now running into the problem that if I leave the thermometer on for more than a couple days, it seems to stop displaying/responding to input.

Typically, I would like to put the nixies to sleep when I leave or go to bed and switch it to all off or blue LED only mode. But if it's been on a couple days, often I wave my hands over it and nothing happens. No mode change or anything. I have to unplug it and plug it back in.

Likewise, I've accidentally left it on over night or while at work and realized it shut itself off and went to this same state. You can see the IR LED on through the black plexi, but nothing happens until power is interrupted.

Any ideas?
Tony
Site Admin
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:05 pm

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by Tony »

We had what seemed to be a bad batch of processors last Spring, up to now 6 I know of have had this problem of latching up randomly.

It caused me a lot of trouble as I was using one of them when working on the clock software, I wasted a lot of time chasing a bug that was causing random crashes that didn't exist.

It must be an older kit, certainly pre-socket probably from a batch made up around last summer. If you PM me your address I'll send out a replacement or if you have a programmer you can program another using the code posted on here.
samwichse
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:00 am

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by samwichse »

OK, YGPM.
nich009
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2014 9:29 pm

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by nich009 »

Sorry its been a while. I measured the voltages on the LEDs in comparison to ground the flat side of D1 stays at 0.12v and the rounded side stays at 4.41v, D2,3,4,5,6 flat side stayed at zero. D2 rounded side flipped between .74v and .12v, D3 rounded side flipped between .81v and .12v, D4 rounded side flips between 1.08v and .12v, D5 rounded side flips between .69v and .12v , D6 rounded side flipped between .70v and .12v. D17 flat side stayed at .12v and its rounded side stayed at 5.01v.
Tony
Site Admin
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:05 pm

Re: Troubleshooting

Post by Tony »

I'd guess either the LEDs are the wrong way round (don't trust the notches, the only reliable indicator is lead length) or the MPSA42/92 transistors are incorrectly fitted.
Can you post a photo of the board at an angle that will show the LEDs from the front and the transistor markings/position?.
Post Reply