openrcforums

Just to be clear... I am talking about this capacitor:
Before you remove it, check to make sure that:
1) It is shorting
2) There isn't any obvious short anywhere else.

the cap. directly behind the previously circled resistor reads different than the others .690 megohm vs 2.75 megohm. It's a little difficult to read accurately.
Thanks for the guidance.
Earl

Again, you can remove it. It shouldn't make a difference (aside from possibly solving the problem). Let us know!

Success! But the menus are working very intermittently. I managed to get to the calibration menu and calibrate the sticks and pots. Now on power up its usually stuck at the splash screen unable to press any keys to move to other menus. Then It changes menus on its own. I'll have to order the .01uf cap as there are none to be found in my area. Hopefully that will take care of it. Again, thanks for the help! This is the first forum I have ever participated in. Everyone is very knowledgeable and helpful.

Earl

Changing menus on it's own points to a stuck key somewhere. I'd suggest removing the main board (taking care with the lcd cable it's very fragile) and checking if there is any thing on the case that may be causing this. The board should work fine without the cap in place (it's a rf blocking cap explained elsewhere nicely by i think mike) but you can find them on old pcb's lying around if you really want to replace it. If you are in europe I can send you a few. Check for any thing that can cause a switch to malfunction, maybe you hear one of them have a slightly different 'click' than the rest for example.


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To enter a menu you need to press and hold the "+" or the "-" button for a second or so.


hmmm..... Check the other capacitors... Maybe you have another one that's shorting.

Is not a very common defect, is it? capacitors shorting just like that

It may be some solder splatter across some lines. It's very clear that the line is being drained to ground. It is weird!

This is getting weird. I cleaned the strip of caps. with isopropyl. see attached pix with readings. Three with .5 and the rest reading 4.75 megohms. Remove them?


Earl

This is weird. Having one go bad is weird but 4? What did they do to your poor board.

My gut tells me yes, go ahead and remove them, but you really want to make sure that there isn't anything else shorting out the lines. Did you remove the board and check the underside?

you also could try to measure the pads of the capacitor you removed. check the resistance there before you remove the others..

I read the pads where I removed the capacitor and it reads 3.67 megohm. I will inspect the other side of the main board tonight.

did you also measure the capacitor??

You really need to measure a cap with a cap meter. Caps can give strange reading, but if if is not dead short ( 0 ohm ) then they are ok.




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I'm really shooting in the dark now. My backlight kit arrived so I removed the board, cleaned / inspected and installed the backlight. The board looked very good. Put it all back together and removed one of those caps at a time while re-checking after each removal. No change, still a short somewhere I guess. On a positive note, the backlight really looks good.

Earl

First thing this morning it actually powered up so I video'd a few screens, turned it off and back on to the splash screen then unable to get back to setup.
Earl

How did you manage to get to the setup screen if it locks up during startup?

Did you try moving the sticks while the flash screen is showing?

What if you flash an eepe file with the checkbox for the splash screen removed?

I just turned it on this am and it went right into the setup screen. I tried moving the sticks as well as key presses. I did un-check "splash Screen in general settings previously and it went to the "ALERT Bad EEprom screen". I mounted my din connector on the outside of the case by mistake not taking to account the backlight kit and board removal for complete inspection as I wanted to remove the foam backlight pad completely just to make sure I didn't miss possible solder splatter. So now I have to reconnect my usbasp solder points on the main board and flash again with the splash screen removed. Thanks for the input.

Earl

ekill wrote:I just found the 9x schematic and followed the menu button trace thru a 200ohm resistor to pin 11 of the ATMEGA64 and noticed the SCK connects at same pin. Last flash I noticed this line:
"avrdude.exe: warning: cannot set sck period. please check for usbasp firmware update" Is that normal? I watched a Richard M video on flashing with epee and he had that same line in avrdude when he flashed. In the mean time I will check voltages at the pull-up resistors.

I just wired up and flashed a buddies Tx last week and it had this same message. Flashing seemed to go ok and the radio has been working fine so far. We used the HobbyKing programmer FWIW.

My TX has the exactly same symptoms.......

rcpaintworks - Did you resolve the problem? I'm beginning to think the fix is a new tx

I've built a special version of er9x - standard version. As it starts up, it keeps putting info on the screen to show how far through the code it has reached, with a delay so you can see it. It displays "AT 1", with the 1 increasing.

if both of you with problems could try loading this, then a valid eeprom file and switching on. Let us know what you see on the screen. If necessary, I'll add some other info depending on what happens with this.

Mike.

Edit - updated code:

Thanks Mike. I'm out of town right now but anxious to try that file. I've been watching Hobbyking for awhile to order a new 9x but they seem to be always on backorder but last night I managed to get one on order. But I still want to try and figure this out. Thanks....Earl

yeah, we would like to know what's happening and it's important.. and the problerm is there is another radio with the same problem.. please don't give up on this one..

I bet you'll find out what the problem is

jhsa - No I'm not giving up on the radio. I always wanted 2 from the start (Trainer radio) and would have if I had known how hard they were to get. In fact I already bought an additional backlight kit, usbasp programmer and rs232 converter and DHT DIY module. My goal is telemetry via the 9x lcd.

I've learned a lot so far and want to share knowledge with some friends that are going to buy a 9x. I have built a few radios before like the Ace Silver Seven and Micropro 8000 and also the Microstar 2000. But they were all kits with the hardest part being the encoder pcb assembly. Hopefully someone on the forum can advise me on what to check next.

Earl

MikeB wrote:I've built a special version of er9x - standard version. As it starts up, it keeps putting info on the screen to show how far through the code it has reached, with a delay so you can see it. It displays "AT 1", with the 1 increasing.

if both of you with problems could try loading this, then a valid eeprom file and switching on. Let us know what you see on the screen. If necessary, I'll add some other info depending on what happens with this.

Mike.

er9xtest.hex

First: Thanks a lot Mike for your efforts on my "brick"!!
I've flashed your test fw on the TX this morning and it hangs again at the splash screen. After removing the splash screen option it says At 8. Then it halts.

Stefan

Update: got into the setup screen tonight and noticed that on screen 4 the left or + button is stuck on. It's highlighted "1" in black. I cannot page to screens in that direction. You guys were right on but I'm still unsure where to go to from here.

Earl

The LEFT key connects the processor on port C bit 6 which is on PIN 16. This is on the 'bottom' row of pins at the right at end. This is one of the pins you have already looked at regarding a capacitor.

Mike.

rcpaintworks wrote:After removing the splash screen option it says At 8. Then it halts.
Stefan

This is immediatly before a call to 'cleaykeyevents()' which waits for all the keys (up, down, left, right, menu, exit) to be released. It looks like one (or more) of these are being seen by the processor as pressed. These are on the processor pins 11 to 16, which are on the bottom row at the right end (16 at the extreme right).
Worth checking these with a meter. You can start by checking the voltage at 'via' hole between the resistor and capacitor connected to each pin, its easier to probe these.
I'll try to do a new test version of the code to help later.

Mike.

What about a version of the code that goes straight into the 4th DIAG screen (switch status)? Would make it instantly obvious which key is stuck and what needs investigation.