Bill and Will's Synth
DFA-875 LCD Oscilloscope Module
Construction

February 2010 -

In the course of our conversations, Dave Brown told us about the LCD oscilloscope module (DJB-019) he had made using the JYE Tech 062 digital storage oscilloscope he got from NKC Electronics.  We were very interested in building one too.  Then we came across an oscilloscope module that David Ingebretsen has built using the Gabotronics AVR MultiKitB.

We kinda like the Gabotronics oscilloscope better - the LCD is bigger and it looks like the buttons and knobs will be easier to separate from the PCB - both big advantages for us.  The Gabotronics kit is more expensive but that's OK - we'll save up.

And while we do, we'll develop this page to document our thinking.

Thanks go to Dave Brown, David Ingebresten, and Gabriel Annziani of Gabotronics for their ideas and support.

Table of Contents

This page has become really long, so here's a table of contents that we hope will make it easier to traverse:

Background - presents an explanation and Gabriel Annziani's  initial description of the Module

Modifications - presents details of the Modifications we made to the MultikitB in the course of designing and building the module

Parts - presents a Bill of Materials and notes about it

Panel - presents the MOTM format panel

Construction Phase 1 - Resistors, Capacitors, IC Sockets, Power Plugs, MTA headers

Construction Phase 2 - Trimmers, Panel connections

Set up / Testing

Background

Modifications

Parts

Panel

Construction Phase 1

All the stuff in Phase 1 gets soldered using "Organic" Solder.  At every break in the action, we wash the board off to get rid of the flux.

Resistors

Whereas we are vigilant about orienting all the resistors, caps, etc. consistently so their values can be read easily (in case we need to trouble-shoot them later), we oriented the resistors with the "tolerance" stripe on the left (relative to the text on the pcb).  We arbitrarily began building our modules this way - on the left - well - just because.  But now, we do it so all our modules are consistent with each other.  You might want to do it the opposite way - with the "tolerance" stripe on the right - it kinda makes more sense.

Capacitors

ICs - Misc Stuff

Construction Phase 2

All the stuff in Phase 2 gets soldered using "No-Clean" Solder and the PCB doesn't get washed off from here on.

PCB Pots

Set up / Testing

Use Notes