Well, since issuing my March Manifesto, I think I’ve managed to break both rules so far. Excellent! Bear in mind, the parts were semi-unobtanium for cheap (CD4006’s and a 74C922Â – fifty cents apiece!), and the new project is something that isn’t going to happen any time soon (an Arduinome – I ordered the shield PCB, and I have a MAX7219. That’s going to be the extent of its progress for quite a while. Must. Clear. Module. Backlog. First.)
I did make some progress on the USB audio interface, but at the moment, it’s only usable as an incredibly expensive USB-powered LED. Not Good. I’ve painstakingly continuity-tested all the traces on the PCB to pins on the PCM2902, and those all check out, but there may be a bridge or something along those lines, or I fried the chip. But so far, it’s getting power from USB, the LDO voltage regulator is working, and maybe the IC is doing something? I’m seeing Vccci/2 on the Vcom pin, but the board isn’t getting recognized by either of the computers I’ve attached it to. Frustrating.
In a worst-case scenario, I do have another PCB (cost me just as much to get two as it would have one), and another PCM2902 (yay pairs of samples!). So I can either build a second one, try the other chip in this one, or some strange combination.
In preparation for whatever I decide to do, I was looking around the Curious Inventor site at some of the surface-mount soldering tutorials, when I found this. I then ended up running out to my local fabric store and finding a slightly different model (a Darice Craft Heat Tool, which is from an Ohio-based company, and the unit is made in Taiwan, in case anyone is looking and wants to know such things.) I haven’t tried using it to solder anything yet, but I did desolder some surface mount parts from a scrap PCB, and it worked really nicely.
I also attempted to get some aluminum panels for various projects, but failed – the posted hours for my local Metal Supermarket didn’t match reality. I will be going back on Friday.
And lastly, I came up with some more ideas I’m not implementing any time soon – a smallish “Analog Computer” module (say 4 op-amp’s worth, think this but way simpler), and a rather crazy Lunetta panel (not sure if I’ll fully do it the way I envisioned – maybe if I can find an ALU chip (74181 or the like) for cheap…)