Konrad, in Poland, has produced a modification to the Sony XDR-F1HD whereby it can be linked to your home computer, via a Seeeduino "open source hardware facilitator" board, and then controlled from your computer. The modification doesn't just provide a way for your computer to tune the radio, but it also adds a host of really useful features via a clever interface, which can actually improve the performance of the XDR-F1HD.
There is also another good reason for having this modification. I have heard from several DXers that their XDR-F1HD's displays have failed. While the tuner itself continues to work, they are suddenly left in the dark, not knowing what frequency they are tuned to, etc. This modification extends an enhanced user interface to your computer screen which allows full visibility and control over the XDR, so should your XDR fail in this way, you can continue to use it, thanks to this modification.
The details of the modification are explained, step by step, on the Konrad website. Unlike this article, there is no waffle there. In this article, I will talk you through some of the fears I had before performing this modification.
What I found rather worrying on the page was their disclaimer, which reads: "Warning: This modification is provided ‘as is’. Do everything on your own responsibility! There’s always a risk of a permanent damage to your tuner!! Always unplug the power cord before doing anything inside it and use a properly grounded soldering iron.". Hmm. That put me off straight away!
My soldering abilities are good, but the soldering irons I own are not really suitable for working with small components, however, there are no micro-components involved in this modification.
Going back to the early 80s, I used to work for an electronics company in which in I assembled PCBs. One of my jobs was to assemble PCBs for multi-standard television receivers. These were for the MOD and were to be used on ships in the Falklands Task Force. So I had good training and clear instructions, though I had no understanding of how the circuits worked. I remember being amazed when those circuits were eventually tested and I learnt that all eleven of them worked first time! So with that knowledge, and the confidence it gave me, I thought I would risk tackling the soldering in this little project.
Breaking it down, step by step: To perform this modification you will need to: 1. Solder four wires between the XDR-F1HD's internal circuit board and the Seeeduino circuit board; 2. A transistor needs to be soldered in too; 3. Software needs running and code needs compiling for upload to the chips inside the Seeeduino board. All this is possibly simple(ish) enough for somebody with a basic knowledge of soldering and maybe a little help from friends who are technically more competent than I am.
Knowing that a fair number of DXers were wanting this modification for their own XDRs, but were reluctant to tackle the job themselves, I thought I would include a detailed account of everything I did. I hope this will be useful and I even wondered if I might offer my services to carry out this modification for others, should I be successful and find the job reasonably simple. Unfortunately for me, I found the job extremely stressful and far more time consuming than I had expected. Those who know me are aware that I do not deal with stress well at all. Just be prepared for a bit of waffle!
Thursday, 13-12-2013
The Seeeduino board dropped on my doormat this morning. Not much time to attempt this job today so I will wait until tomorrow. Actually, I am still trying to decide if it is a good idea for me to tackle this job. Could I find somebody to do this for me? I knew this was unlikely.
Saturday, 14-12-2013
Bravely, I unscrewed the lid of the XDR-F1HD and looked in fear at the components within. How much dust? !!! A thick layer of dust had accumulated in several areas. A Dyson cleaner, with a small, soft brush attachment, was brought in to suck out most of the dust. So far, so good.
Ah - I had not taken the XDR's cooling fan into account. I added this when I first bought the radio. Did I superglue it? Hmm. It felt solid and wouldn't shift at all, so the available internal space was going to be very tight for the soldering iron. I could get the soldering iron where I needed it - only just, but I was probably going to melt some of the internal plastic casing or cause some other damage. I persevered nonetheless. Personally, I don't mind too much if there are a few scratches and dents here and there. I'm the same with cars. I look after these things, but they are there to do a job, not to look pretty.
After an hour of messing around I had to give up and accept that there just wasn't sufficient room to poke and prod around in there with the fat soldering tip - the smallest one I had. The tip wasn't in good shape either. Would it last long enough for me to get the job done?
From the start, my intention was to take photographs of each stage of the modification. In view of the enormous blobs of solder which were accumulating across the PCB I thought it best to abandoned that idea or risk serious embarrassment. My workmanship was becoming embarrassingly shoddy, especially as I had re-soldered all the wires several times to ensure there weren't any dry joints.
That cooling fan was not going to let me in, so I got a large flat blade screwdriver and prized it away from the tuner casing and plastic rear panel. It came away thanks to some brute force and ignorance (two good friends of mine) and I had room to manoeuvre at last. Go away Blogger! (Blogger is telling me I have spelled manoeuvre incorrectly. NO I HAVEN'T!) I re-soldered the wires and transistor one more time, feeling satisfied that each one was making a good contact, despite loosening all the jumpers on the PCB my soldering iron came into contact with.
Finished! Well, the XDR PCB side at least. The rest should be relatively simple. Next to feed the wires through a hole I made in the rear of the XDR casing, re-attach the cooling fan and perform a last-minute idiot check on my connections for possible shorting. DAMN! While I was prodding around the BS170 decided to wave goodbye to one of its legs. It had snapped off right at the casing.
I didn't have another transistor so I needed to locate some quickly. Would Maplin have any? Don't be silly John! It's an electronic component's shop! "The Electronic's Specialists" they call themselves. Not a BS170 in sight! Time to locate an alternative. A spot of Googling told me that the 2N7000 was a common enough alternative transistor and appeared to be suitable. Now then, would my nearest Maplin store have any in stock? I would have to wait until the morning to find out. Don't you just hate it when you are keen to get a job done and have all these unnecessary hold-ups?
Concluding today, I spent three hours on the soldering and I was thankful that everything appeared to work properly after I returned the radio to its original state. Well, "bodged" the radio back to it's original state. It now looks like an elephant has been inside.
Sunday, 15-12-2013
Maplin in Boston had TWO 2N7000 transistors in stock. Their Lincoln store had five. The Boston store is only 25 miles from here against Lincoln's 45 miles so I reserved my order online and drove to Boston.
On entering the store I was greeted (pounced on in fact ... I kid you not!) by the most irritating man who thought he was God's gift to the retail trade. I don't like to be rude and always make an effort to be polite but, in this case, my lack of response to his OTT sales tactics left him slightly bewildered. I simply pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and showed it to him. It contained my order number. Undeterred, he shot into the store room with it, still bursting with enthusiasm, and I still hadn't uttered a word to him! I did try to be more polite when he returned with the goods, but I was tempted to express my disgust at the price of these transistors - 1.09 each! While that's hardly a large sum of money, this was ELEVEN times more expensive then the same transistors at RS Components. There was no way I was going to chance the Christmas post. Oh, I purchased a nice new soldering iron while I was at Maplin Ripofftronics.
The next issue I faced was to wonder which wires on the 2N7000 transistor were the base, the collector and the emitter. These were now labelled as the gate, the drain and the source. Hmmm. Which was which? I have forgotten about these things and it's 27 years since I studied this for the RAE (Radio Amateur's Examination). Thankfully, Andy Webster in Wigan came to the rescue via Skype chat and pointed out that my understanding of transistors was a little prehistoric. I wondered why there was no longer a little red dot on the body of the transistor - apparently that went out with the dinosaurs! :O) Andy explained which pins were which but I eventually noticed that all the relevant information was explained on the Konrad website! Silly me for missing it.
Right - waffle over and down to business! Bah! It's getting a bit late and I feel like collapsing to bed. Maybe I'll finish this tomorrow ... or the day after ... or next week ..... perhaps.
Monday, 16-12-2013
I made a start on the re-soldering the wires inside the XDR, mid-afternoon. It was an unlucky start as that nice new tip on my nice new soldering iron had burnt away already, rendering it useless. I had no choice but to use an old and totally unsuitable large-tipped soldering iron. I was as careful as I could be, but I continued to deposit even larger blobs of solder on to the PCB. I made sure there were no shorts and I could see that the mountainous blobs were holding the wires in place rigidly. Personally, I just got to the point where I didn't care how unprofessional my soldering looked, as long as I got the job done and everything worked. I finished the XDR wiring after about an hour.
The next job was to solder the wires to the Seeeduino board. I actually completed this task very quickly and also very neatly. It looked quite professional too! No problems here at all! Moving on ...
The final stage - installing the software. Firstly, I must say enormous thank yous to two fellow 'Skywavers', without whom I would probably not have completed this job: Julian Hardstone, who gave me some solid advice at the onset of this project; Stuart Heathcock, who donated a substantial amount of his time on the Skywaves Skype Chat, going through the software procedures and ensuring the source code and software ended up in the correct directories on the computer. This actually proved to be a major headache and took two to three hours to sort out. The problem was eventually solved though and it was time to install the drivers, run the "sketch" software, upload the data to the Seeeduino chips and fire up the XDR-GTK software. These last stages I worked out for myself. But, without the help of Julian and Stuart, .... etc. Who knows what might have happened?
I ran the XDR-GTK software and watched the XDR display go dim. Hmm. Had I broken it? NO! A second or two later and the XDR sprung to life! The XDR-GTK screen displayed all those nice features I had seen on various YouTube videos over the last few months. The display showed 87.5 so I entered 88.8 for my local BBC Radio 2 Belmont transmitter and there it was! It worked FIRST TIME! What a relief!
If you're still with me, you will understand why I found the whole procedure quite daunting. It actually made me feel ill while I was doing it. Not only had I no idea if this was going to work, but that fear of permanently destroying the XDR-F1HD was eating away at me throughout. This was the most complex operation of its kind I have performed on any of my radio equipment and I really do not want to do it again. Famous last words, as you will discover below.
As I stated above, I deliberately wanted to construct a blow-by-blow account of everything which happened throughout this procedure as I thought it might be useful to other DXers. If you have learnt something from my mistakes, then that's a good thing. We ALL make them! I really couldn't face having to go through this all again, especially on somebody else's equipment. It would drive me mad!
Just one more problem: Just as I thought I had got everything set up correctly, it all stopped working. Every time I pressed "Connect" on the XDR-GTK software, I got a message saying "Could not start radio". To say I was worried would be an understatement. I spent the next two hours trying all kinds of things, even going as far as to start the software installation again from scratch, uninstalling the drivers and re-setting the Seeeduino board along the way. Even after installation there was a Windows message which kept appearing on the bottom right corner of the computer screen, informing me that the USB device was damaged or not connected. Naturally I was beginning to fear the worst, but I hadn't made any changes to cause this problem, as far as I was aware. It took an hour or two before I realised that the issue was down to the fact that the XDR-F1HD had to be powered up before the XDR-GTK software was started. It was that simple! It seems the XDR-GTK software will not start the radio by itself. Phew!
Don't forget to allow time for the radio to 'warm up' before running the software. Turn on the XDR and wait between 15 seconds or so and a minute. Valve radios are quicker! The colder the ambient room temperature, the longer it takes for the XDR to initialise. While out in the car one cold winter's evening, it took 20 minutes! 10 seconds seems to be adequate for a hot summer's day.
Folks - this was a tough one for me. If you are more technically skilled than this then please go ahead and try the modification yourself, but if you are like me or don't know one end of a screwdriver from the other, steer well clear.
Good luck if you do decide to give it a go. Please ask me any questions - I am happy to help if I can, but this project is NOT for the faint-hearted and I survived only by the skin of my teeth - and also because of the help I received from Julian, And and Stuart - oh, and I must mention my lovely wife, Jane, who bought me the Seeduino board as a Christmas present!
Hopefully I will publish some demonstrations of the XDR-GTK software in the coming days on my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/g1vvp
No comments:
Post a Comment