Plug in your keyboard (wireless keyboard) , audio and paddle and there you go.......

5" RA8875 tft with capacitive touchscreen

Engraved at 0.18mm and painted with black paint

12 preset messages there is space for more extra features.

Hi, is your MRSC Signature CW Modem up and running?

I got to try mine for the first time yesterday. I did receive the PCB in

the beginning this the week, Monday. Most of the components I had

already received from Mouser Electronics, even the TFT display Adafruit

2050 I bought from there. Then it was time to start....

I used a cheap analog soldering station, 49w with a 0.5mm tip plus

0.56mm solder wire and flux RF 800. And of course, a magnifying glass

with lighting. I started with the small T1, Q1 and Q2. And then on to U2

and U3. After that I went over to the small components. I soldered all

of the same kind, ie. first all of .001uF then .01uF etc. All from the

same tape until everyone was mounted so as I wouldn’t mix the components

together. Between each series of components, when the tape was empty, I

washed away the flux from the circuit board with a Q-tip and plenty of

isopropanol. Just to avoid it getting too messy. Excited by the

assembly, I worked as long as my back and eyes allowed. It took me two

days to complete, and probably breathed in lots of isopropanol vapor at

the time.

Then I discovered that the socket connector I was going to use for J5

didn’t fit in the holes, my pins was flat, not round or square. I did

order some new ones just to discover that the new ones also was flat,

but not as wide as the other, so I did file down the pins until they fit

in the holes.

Finally time to test.

I programed the Teensy with firmware V2 and assembled Teensy, PCB,

display and booted up. The screen lighted up, blinked a little while

booting and then dimmed a little and……. nothing.

Hmm, tried the other firmware: V3 – same thing again. By now I started

to get a little scared. What or where did it go wrong?

I sent a mail to Johan and explained the problem and symptoms and got

the answer: ” You make the solder on the back on the display ? Close IM2!”

Of course I hadn’t done that. Heated up the solder iron again and

bridged the ”Close IM2 for SPI” pads. Booting up and the text and

graphics came up. Thanks Johan for saving me from a sleepless night!

I pushed the center of the screen and the 8 message buttons came up so

the touch screen worked fine.

Second I'd plug in my wireless Rii mini i8, and to my surprise it

worked. Did not expect that. After that I programmed message 1 and 2

just to try. They worked just fine in different speeds. Finally I

cleared all with ctrl - alt - del. I also discovered that the settings

menu could be managed from the keyboard but the menu have to be

activated by the push-button on the encoder.

During the past week I have also been working on an enclosure to this

but it’s not machined it yet so I have just tried the MRSC Signature

rigged on my table so far. I'm planing to have a enclosure ready for it

next week.

That's my experience of this so far, how about yours?

73 de

Jan / SA3BKP