More work on Thing’s Opto board
Back to work on the Opto board last evening. I’d received my diodes from Conrad (together with some veroboard and cable connectors for the Magnet Burn Project which I’ll be working on later) and it was now time to solder in the new diode and connect up the board (simulating the normally open opto contact using electricians tape) to see if the problem had been solved….
To my chagrin, it hadn’t. In fact the problem appeared to be worse: having attached the board, only by slightly moving the board, the normally on opto switch would switch off. And I still couldn’t localise where the problem was. Whatever I tried to hold still (whether it be the board, the plug/socket or wires) and moving the rest, I couldn’t localise the problem. How frustrating!
One thing I did do, however, was to take the electricians tape from the second opto switch, so that both were now closed. By moving the optoboard to generate the failure, both switches went open circuit simultaneously. This implies to me that the problem is not with the row and/or column lines leading to the connector, but either the +12v line or the ground line only. More investigation is needed here….