Rev. 11 Aug 2014
This board is partially finished and won't be finished- it is being used as a filtered breakout board in the Blue Monitor. - DH 13 Jul 2015

Rev. 11 Aug 2014

Rev. 11 Aug 2014

Rev. 27 Jan 2015
Fully functional; used as reference during Wiki documentation. - Drew 13 Jul 2015

Rev. 11 Aug 2014

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

This board recently finished being constructed. Testing with the gold monitor indicates that all three channels on the board are fully operational. Tested: 7/9/15 by Boyd and Zach

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

The Red UMCC connector is a little stiff / hard to connect to; there might be some solder on there. - Drew Fri 29 Aug 2015

During the board debugging frenzy of 17-21 July 2015, this board was used for experimenting with solder paste and reflow ovens. While the board now works 100%, it has a burned appearance from going through the reflow oven. A few of the ADTL1-12 transformers melted and deformed slightly (esp. T7), but these still function as normal. An endurance test has not yet been performed on this board. - Drew & Zach Tue 21 Jul 2015

Construction is completed on this board. Testing shows that all channels have are not outputting correctly. In other words, this board is completely broken and needs to be debugged. We also noticed the HELA-10s getting incredibly hot on this board. Another note is that the board may not have been fully connected while testing, leading to the faulty result. Tested: 7/9/15 by Boyd and Zach

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Tue 21 Jul 2015 Drew & Zach:
We now believe that the Arctic Silver thermal paste is what is responsible for the burn-out. Although it's website states it's not conductive, it explicitly states that it should be kept away from “electrical traces, pins, and leads”. It may have conductive properties at high frequencies. We removed it from all other boards and haven't had this problem again since then. We will attempt repairs on Board 3 if one of the six other currently working boards fails (Boards D, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6). The biggest problem during repairs will be ensuring that the charred PCB isn't significantly conductive. Reference material to repairing extensively-charred PCBs: here

Wed 15 Jul 2015 Drew & Zach:
Blue channel Test 4 works. The final output works fine and the HELA-10 stays moderately warm; works for extended periods of time.
Had to resolder R5 on the Red channel to get Test 4 working.
Red Test 7 failed; found that the upstream pad of C11 hadn't been soldered completely; afterwards, Test 7 passed, but showed saturated power levels: main signal flattened out at +20 dBm, 1st harmonic flattened at +8 dBm, 2nd at +3 dBm.
Red HELA-10 pin 10 VAPORIZED while testing final output; was removed; PCB has a scorched hole where pin 10 was; we cleaned it up as much as possible.
Green channel Test 4 worked for a while, but HELA-10 pin 10 VAPORIZED in a later test.

7/9/15 Boyd and Zach:
Construction on this board was recently completed. Testing reveals that the red and green channels are working perfectly, while the blue channel is not displaying properly. The problem may be just as simple as a faulty connector on this board, as the output does appear to be fuzzier when the DVI cable is plugged in. The fuzz seems to loosely suggest the shape of letters.

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

After reflowing all solder connections, the board is now fully functional. I don't remember every joint that had to be fixed or if any parts had to be replaced because we were doing a lot of it with the other boards. There was some stray solder paste under the HELA-10 that was shorting out pin 10 with ground, which resulted in L1 popping like a fuse. This was fixed by reflowing the HELA-10. - Drew & Zach, Tue 21 July 2015

Construction of this board has been fully completed. Testing indicates that the red channel is non-operational, the green channel is operational but it displays a different section of the image than all other tested cards do and has strange uniform vertical artifacts, the blue channel is not fully operational as an area that appears to have the shape of really fuzzy letters does appear, however they are so fuzzy they are unreadable, looking more like SFS than FOX. Tested: 7/9/15 by Boyd and Zach

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Fully functional after reflowing all solder joints and re-setting the HELAs. The Green channel final output was weird (pictured below). When testing Test 7 or 8 (between the 2nd GVA-84 and the HELA), the output was the same, indicating the green-channel HELA (U6) was probably not at fault. I guessed that the 2nd GVA-84 (U8) was bad and swapped that out, but found that L22 was actually broken in half without appearing damaged. This was discovered when I reflowed it and it separated into two pieces. Replacing the inductor and GVA-84 restored full functionality. The GVA-84 may have still worked fine. - Drew, Tue 21 July 2015

Construction on this board has been completed, with the exception of the heat sink. Testing shows that none of the three channels work on this board. Blue may be working better than the others, as a fuzzy blob can be seen in the middle of it while testing. However, this may just be a distorted higher intensity area. Tested: 7/13/15 by Boyd

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

The board is now fully functional after reflowing all solder joints. The red-channel Hela-10 had to be reflowed again. - Drew & Zach, Tue 21 July 2015

Construction on this board has been completed, with the exception of the heat sink. It appears that none of the channels work on the board. Tested: 7/13/15 by Boyd

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

This board was accidentally incinerated and is irrecoverable:

We put this board on standoffs to raise it off of the reflow oven floor. We thought there was solder mask melting to the bottom of the oven, which is not the case. The standoffs raised the board too close to the heater elements, and it was exposed to higher temperatures than intended. - Andrew Wed 5 Aug 2015

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Upconverted output on Blue: +24 to +21 dBm, Red: +24 to +20 dBm, Green: +24 to +20 dBm due to higher-than-expected attenuation from ADE-1.

Assembled via stencil method and tested 5/6 Aug 2015 - Boyd & Andrew

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Assembled via stencil technique and tested 5/6 Aug 2015.

The Hela stage of the Blue channel doesn't work. Test 8 works. It was discovered before testing Test 8 that pin 3 of T7 was not connected to ground.

- Boyd & Andrew

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

The 2nd GVA-84 stage only amplifies by 15dB, not the needed 20dB. The HELA-10 and 2nd GVA-84 were replaced.

Assembled via the solder stencil technique. Tested/fixed Thu 6 Aug 2015 - Andrew

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Upconverted final output on Red: +24 to +20 dBm, Blue: +24 to +20 dBm, Green: +24 to +20 dBm due to greater attenuation than expected from the ADE-1. - Andrew Mon 10 Aug 2015

Assembled via the stencil technique and tested 5/6 Aug 2015.

This board was reflowed right after another one and got singed kinda badly.

Final output on the Red channel was attenuated because there was a failed (missing) trace between C3 and pin 1 of the 2nd ADTL1-12 of the Red channel. Once these two pins were bridged with solder, the Red channel output was restored to full power. - Andrew Thu 6 Aug 2015

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Upconverted final output on Red: +24 to +20 dBm, Blue: +24 to +20 dBm, Green: +24 to +20 dBm due to greater attenuation than expected from the ADE-1. - Andrew Mon 10 Aug 2015

Assembled via the solder stencil technique. Board worked 100% (passthrough) first test. - Andrew 6 Aug 2015

Rev. 27 Jan 2015

Upconverted final output on Red: +24 to +20 dBm, Blue: +21 to +20 dBm, Green: +24 to +20 dBm due to greater attenuation than expected from the ADE-1. - Andrew Mon 10 Aug 2015

Assembled via solder stencil technique circa Tue 4 Aug 2015. - Andrew

Rev. 27 Jan 2015