LVB Tracker - Countdown to Field Day

The verbose entry about my Dayton Hamvention experience got lost in Blogger space. You have been saved.

So I will just say HAMVENTION WAS GREAT! Thursday morning worked as an Inside Exhibits Floor Manager for DARA and helped set up the AMSAT booth in the afternoon. Thursday evening Jim, WB8AZP helped me assemble LVB Trackers since I had only 10 ready for sale. Thanks Jim!!!! Friday pulled floor manager duty in the morning. The folks in the AMSAT booth sold all the trackers available by the time I reported in for booth duty. So I left early and went back to the hotel room to finish building more. 12 hours later I had 27 trackers ready for sale... at 3:30 am. Saturday morning 4 more hours of Floor Manager duty for DARA.... Boring as it was all in East Hall... My schedule was changed so I ended up staying there for my second shift. Then back to the AMSAT booth for some booth duty. It was great to see Richard and Owen Garriot while they were there but I was just an observer... no quality time... Saturday night nobody mentioned any dinner venues so I ate at Arbys, did the hot tub and chilled the rest of the evening. Sunday I was a free man... No booth duty or DARA duty so I milled around the inside exhibits spending some time in the OARC booth talking to Jim, WB8AZP. I almost bought an Icom IC-880 Dstar radio but I don't really use the ones I have now and didn't need to spend big money this year. Trip back home was successful and it was GREAT to be back home.

So now it's been almost a month since Hamvention and I find myself in the same situation I was in before. BUILDING LVB TRACKERS!!! 12 trackers did not sell at Hamvention and were shipped back the the office to fill pending orders there. But... last I heard there are now 13 pending orders!!!! 13 PENDING ORDERS. And at least one ham indicated they need a tracker for field day. So the theme for our blogs for the rest of June will be a countdown to field day. And as before the blogs will report on the progress of the latest LVB Tracker build.

Currently we are assembling 25 circuit boards.

Sunday resistors R1 thru R4 were mounted, soldered and clipped. That doesn't sound like much but it took quite an effort to get stuff back in order to resume manufacturing. Remember much that is manufacturing went to Dayton to finish the last build of 40 trackers. Well actually it was 39. One of the trackers failed final test with the dreaded EEProm error.

Monday resistors R5 - R7, R13 - 16 and diodes D1 - D7 were mounted. Something happenned that took me away from the project and I never returned.

Tuesday, Mondays work was soldered and clipped. R8 and R17, C3, C4, C11, C14 and RV1 were mounted and clipped. Mounted and soldered the machined sockets which is the biggest nasty part due to all the soldering. As mentioned in earlier blogs 25 boards are too many to do at one time but from here on out I think that is how we will do it since they come packaged in bricks of 25 and the demand seems to be there for the moment. Also mounted the 4mhz crystal and reset switch. Manufacturing note: Don't mount the RV1 pot until after the ic sockets. Remaining tasks for pcb construction are:

+ electrolytic capacitors (9) compl Weds, 6-10
+ idc connectors (4) compl Thurs 6-11
+db9 connector (1) compl Thurs 6-11
+transistors (4) compl Weds, 6-10
+7505 voltage regulator (1) compl Thurs 6-11
+7505 heat sink (1) compl Thurs 6-11
+remove flux from pcb (25) compl Friday 6-12
+preliminary voltage tests (25) compl Friday 6-12
+pic insertion (25) compl Friday 6-12
+option clips installed c compl Friday 6-12
+boards serialized compl Friday 6-12
+pic firmware flash (25) compl Friday 6-12
+usb module insertion (25) compl Friday 6-12

pcb's finished... compl Friday 6-12

Remaining tasks till trackers are ready for shipping

+lcd display holes drilled/de-burred (25) compl Saturday 6-13
+idc connectors soldered to lcd display (25) compl Saturday 6-13
+idc connector contacts crimped to din cable (25) compl Saturday 6-13
+final lvb tracker assembly. (25)
+test on G5500 or G5400 rotor and PC running SatPC32 (25)
+close case, clean and wrap for shipping (25)
+pack and ship (25)

This week I'm on vacation. It's a go nowhere vacation so there are things to do around the house:

+clean gutters
+cut grass compl Weds, 6-10
+misc gardening
+take truck to dealer for service compl Thurs 6-11
+re-frame breezeway doors
+clean hot tub and get it back in service
+stay off feet to let arthritis racked knee heal.
+go see Star Trek movie if it's still playing
+put up two collinear antennas so the repeater will be heard somewhere.
+remove clutter from your work space (where trackers are built).
+clean back patio

Plus thousands of other things ignored over the years.

This is the last time I'm going to think about it. Good thing Sue lets me put things off to build trackers..... for now.

Going to bed 2:18am