Thread: Building a lean & mean Jaycar Phoenix

as always Gw great work mate thanks

Do some people have reliability issues with the standard jaycar? Mine hasn't given any grief whatsoever.

BTW, great work GW1, I always admire people who have the ability to redesign ccts like that, I have absolutely no idea...even with a RMIT advanced cert in electronics behind me.

It's very important that you ALWAYS UNPLUG THE SWITCHMODE PLUGPACK BEFORE CONNECTING / DISCONNECTING THE SERIAL CABLE!
In other words

• when hooking up, attach the serial cable first and the power cable second
• when unplugging, unplug the power cable first and the serial cable second

Why does it matter? If you plug it into the interface first the "tingle" current between it and your PC is enough to damage your serial port and/or the MAX232 IC. I've managed to destroy several serial ports in this way in recent years. I'm not making this up - in one case the product concerned was worth $200 and I was pretty pissed off I can tell you.

The reason the destructive current exists is because switchmode plugpacks aren't earthed.

Switchmodes are becoming the norm for plugpacks because of new industry codes for low standby power consumption. That's why it's only in recent years that we're encountering problems with ports getting zapped. In the old days you could use a plugpack pretty much anywhere with few problems apart from noise.

When you buy them they'll usually say on the box whether they're switchmode or not. Switchmode plugpacks weigh much less than traditional ferrite transformer ones (because of all the iron in the transformer) which is the simplest way to tell them apart. With old heavy plugpacks you don't need to worry about the order in which you plug things in. But with switchmode plugpacks you do.

If powering the interface from your PC using a 4-pin hard disk power cable you don't need to worry about order. You don't even need to shut down your PC to connect/disconnect. (In general it's wise practice to shutdown your PC whenever you plug/unplug its internal cables, but in this particular case you don't need to.)

This is great detail...

I have always used Jaycar M1's to run cards on dreams and PC...
I have never been able to get the M2 to work in the mix for a server... if I construct as above will the phoenix run as a server on a Db and PC

cheers

Originally Posted by oldmate

This is great detail...

I have always used Jaycar M1's to run cards on dreams and PC...
I have never been able to get the M2 to work in the mix for a server... if I construct as above will the phoenix run as a server on a Db and PC

cheers

I have an unmodded one which seems to work fine for everything I use it for from running on a PC or on the back of dreambox.

Leroy

Leroy I use my MII all the time and have never thought there could be anything wrong with it but stuffed if i can swing from the back of a dream or pc...
are there any tricks ???

switch in..
phoenix mode..
either clock...

got me !!!1

cheers

the markII works well mate have a look at all your joints on the one you have under a magnifying glass there may be a dry joint

no tricks old mate, it just works. Maybe worth as mentioned above checking all solder connections with a magnifying glass and correct component location and orientation.

Leroy

There is a mod to change a resistor to a diode near a IC but I can't remember where.
It was to deal with the current cards.
Those in the know may be able to help.
Try this after you have confirmed polarity and placement of all components,
It's easy to put a resistor in the wrong place,measure all before placement,
as others have said check or re-do all joints(quicker in my opinion).

Hmm... always thought it worked... built it years and years ago.... and use it all the time... lol...

I've got a mate bringing his around for me to try....

thanks for the info... great stuff... thinking i may buy another kit this week...

thx all..

oldmate

you mean these mods

Them be the one's, All i can remember is some delt with the polarity of the card switch for some software, the diode was to read v4.1 + cards,
and the other??
All I can say is thanks to those who share their knowledge.
Although you have to have a brain yourself to get anywhere in this hobby.

Originally Posted by sublib25

Them be the one's, All i can remember is some delt with the polarity of the card switch for some software, the diode was to read v4.1 + cards,
and the other??
All I can say is thanks to those who share their knowledge.
Although you have to have a brain yourself to get anywhere in this hobby.

this one will explain what each mod was for ,And all props to GW1

Originally Posted by sublib25

Them be the one's, All i can remember is some delt with the polarity of the card switch for some software, the diode was to read v4.1 + cards,
and the other??
All I can say is thanks to those who share their knowledge.
Although you have to have a brain yourself to get anywhere in this hobby.

there was a thread that explained what all the mods did exactly. I've found it to work fine with 'those' cards.

Leroy

Just out of interest Leroy or Fandtm666 how much voltage are you supplying to the MKII when swinging from PC or Dream..
I have tried both mine and my mates with no joy... 9V in... I keep reading it may need 12V....
any comments??
cheers

Have been assembling another this morning circuit is defiantly different maybe the other kits were just to old...

Oldmate....I have mine powered by a 12v transformer when on the dream and it runs off a usb port whilst swinging off a pc (infact it is getting it's pwr via a usb/ps2 converter and plugged into the keyboard ps2 interface). They both work with no dramas, I do recall that the mark II construction instructions claimed it could run on a 9v battery but I never tried it.