Pulsar-fans,
Over the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that there's almost certainly no P1 expert in existence to send a 25 chip E/D module to for repair and that it's probably ok for me to tinker with it a bit myself (see http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=4060). So this afternoon, with the autumn weather finally more conducive to tinkering, I took it out of its little box, put aside the fancy power supply that I used for the first round of tests and simply attached some leads from a 99 cent AA battery pack. There seems to be some connectivity issues and the module and it's not very consistent, but lo and behold, it works (kinda, sorta):
Dang, I should have waited 3 more minutes and photographed it at 12:08:
Enlarge (1200x1800): http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/78/d ... 0x1800.jpg
Close-up of the display showing dashes:
Enlarge: (1800x1200): http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3796 ... 0x1200.jpg
A few observations:
1) The digits are composed of not dots or segments, but dashes
2) The display is shockingly bright - the digits are tiny but brighter than those on any other module that I have seen. I think I read somewhere that they are not multiplexed so perhaps that's the explanation?
3) One segment is a bit dimmer than the rest, but otherwise I think they are all working.
4) The quartz crystal / timing circuit may be working. The time seems to be advancing properly from minute to minute. It's hard to tell definitively because the operation is inconsistent and I haven't been able to run it long enough and consistently enough to be certain.
At this point, I think the next step is probably to see if I can get the battery connections fixed so I don't need to connect directly to the board and deal with fickle connectivity issues.
So, this all seems rather promising - all is not completely lost. Perhaps some day I will have a working P1.
-abe.
Over the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that there's almost certainly no P1 expert in existence to send a 25 chip E/D module to for repair and that it's probably ok for me to tinker with it a bit myself (see http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=4060). So this afternoon, with the autumn weather finally more conducive to tinkering, I took it out of its little box, put aside the fancy power supply that I used for the first round of tests and simply attached some leads from a 99 cent AA battery pack. There seems to be some connectivity issues and the module and it's not very consistent, but lo and behold, it works (kinda, sorta):
Dang, I should have waited 3 more minutes and photographed it at 12:08:
Enlarge (1200x1800): http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/78/d ... 0x1800.jpg

Close-up of the display showing dashes:
Enlarge: (1800x1200): http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3796 ... 0x1200.jpg

A few observations:
1) The digits are composed of not dots or segments, but dashes
2) The display is shockingly bright - the digits are tiny but brighter than those on any other module that I have seen. I think I read somewhere that they are not multiplexed so perhaps that's the explanation?
3) One segment is a bit dimmer than the rest, but otherwise I think they are all working.
4) The quartz crystal / timing circuit may be working. The time seems to be advancing properly from minute to minute. It's hard to tell definitively because the operation is inconsistent and I haven't been able to run it long enough and consistently enough to be certain.
At this point, I think the next step is probably to see if I can get the battery connections fixed so I don't need to connect directly to the board and deal with fickle connectivity issues.
So, this all seems rather promising - all is not completely lost. Perhaps some day I will have a working P1.
-abe.