Jaycar Phoenix Mk II troubleshooting summary

[gw1]

I can't get my Jaycar Mk II card programmer to work.

The most common faults are
1. bad joints due to insufficient heat when soldering
2. broken tracks under REG1, Q1 or Q2
3. incorrect resistor positioning because of ambiguous colours

To troubleshoot, start by inspecting the PCB closely (with bright light and magnifying glass) for bad solder joints, especially on the wire jumper links and on the 1uF capacitors. For some reason people tend to pre-trim those leads too short and end up with bad joints. I recommend always solder first and then trim.

Then check for possible broken tracks under REG1, Q1 & Q2 in the locations discussed .

Make sure you haven't missed the extra link . Most kits bought nowadays have slightly different PCB to the [2.3MB PDF] because of a revision Jaycar made last year.

Look closely at the component overlay supplied with your kit and double-check that what you've built exactly matches the diagram.

• Check all your resistor values are correct (ie they're all in the correct positions). The red/brown/orange on Jaycar's resistors can be ambiguous in some cases so double-check with an ohmmeter if you're unsure.
• Check that diodes, LEDs and electrolytic capacitors are the correct way around.
• Check that you put the correct transistor types in Q1 & Q2.

Also check that the ICs are correctly seated in their sockets, the right way around, with no legs bent under.

Once you've completed that visual inspection, have a go at the troubleshooting procedure .

Also make sure your serial cable is fully-wired male to female (all 9 pins connected, 1-1, 2-2 etc).

Your plugpack should be 9 or 12V DC, preferably 300mA or more; 150mA is usually sufficient though. The plug needs to be positive tip. If it's a switchmode plugpack then you need to always connect both ends of the serial cable before plugging in the power or you risk damage to the MAX232 chip and/or your PC serial port.

Once it's going I recommend you make the following mods:

• inverter modification (cut two tracks and add two wires)
• schottky diode modification (replace 4K7 with BAT85 or 1N5819)
• connnect DB9 socket pins 6 & 9 to ground
• connect a decoupling capacitor between VCC and GND pins of the smartcard socket; I suggest either a 0.1uF or 1uF multilayer ceramic, or a 1uF or 2.2uF tantalum.

The schottky mod is shown . The other mods are shown .

The 27K pullup resistor mod mentioned in some posts isn't usually needed so don't bother with that.

If you're using a 3V card the modification for that is . Ady_m's nice tutorial for using the 3V mod with Sky NDS cards is .

I'm happy to for members who've done their best to troubleshoot. I no longer have time to assemble kits for people though; if you've no electronics tools or experience and aren't really interested in learning about it then I recommend you buy a .