Superully's Superduper PCB Testing Station

[baritonomarchetto]

[...]PLUS I have made "overlay templates" for common pinouts. [...]

Brilliant (i was just trying to figure out why you had "Konami" written on it) 

[Etienne MacGyver]

what is an octopus? and please, no pics like that

this looks like an octopus 

[Superully]

i still don't get how you connect those wires to the pcbs ... any close-up shots?

[Luigi]

i still don't get how you connect those wires to the pcbs ... any close-up shots?

You simply put the blue connnector to the PCB and put the plugs to the necessary place in the test-station....my guess 

[Zorg]

Luigi: good guess.

to Superully, lets imagine the following hypotetical PCB pinout:

component side:

1: Video Red
2: Video Green
3: Video Blue
4: video Sync
5: 12 V
6: Common
7: Joy2 Up
8: Joy2 Down
9: Joy2 Left
10: Joy2 right
etc etc.....

you will end up plugging each wire on their respective function.

really easy to perform, just read the pinout and plug the wire from the "octopuss" to the correct hole.

see:


 

[level42]

But with that set-up you still need to solder new "octopusies" for every different board right ?

What would be really universal would be an edge connector that would fit most boards and then have (small) plugs there to switch there. Or am I wrong ?

[Luigi]

But with that set-up you still need to solder new "octopusies" for every different board right ?

What would be really universal would be an edge connector that would fit most boards and then have (small) plugs there to switch there. Or am I wrong ?

You just need one "octopus" for each size of connector (18/22/28/30). Each octopus must be fully wired with plugs. Just let the wires you don't need unplugged

I had something similiar but a few times I had the problem that there were plugs with 5V or even 12V lying around...one time causing a short on a pcb     So I have built the solution with the two panels.

[Zorg]

how did you get 5//12 V on au unplugged plug lying aroud
if a plug is not plugged, ti should not get any voltage. power is comming from the test bench to the PCB. not in the other way
if you have voltage on unplugged wire, that's because you alredy have  a short on your PCB.

anyway just add some unwired//isolated housing to the test bench to host the un-necessary plugs, or better than that use fully isolated plugs

[Etienne MacGyver]

There are pcb's that have for example power on pin 5 , 6 and 7 (to distribute the load on the trace)

so of you feed the power on pin 5, then pin 6 and 7 from the octopus have that power also because its interconnected through the pcb..

if those are just hanging around, then you have a risk of shorting them with something

[Luigi]

There are pcb's that have for example power on pin 5 , 6 and 7 (to distribute the load on the trace)

so of you feed the power on pin 5, then pin 6 and 7 from the octopus have that power also because its interconnected through the pcb..

if those are just hanging around, then you have a risk of shorting them with something

Exactly!

PLUS there might be more pins with voltages you don't know because you don't know the pinout of the PCB.

[Superully]

while i still don't quite understand that octopus thing you've been talking about (hopefully thorsten will have some time to explain it to me "live" when i deliver his stuff), i've gone through my box of adapters in the meantime to take pictures of the three most common ones. here's what i have, let me start with two adapters for the msg slot of my testing station



that's a link directly from the station to the pcb. would it be a good idea to have an msg to jamma adapter first? and then from jamma to the individual pcb?



up next are two different adapters for the tv ideal slot, one which looks like that ...



... and another one which looks like that



what is the difference between those two adapters? as i've said, both fit into the tv ideal slot with a "fingerboard" (if you call it like that) of 30 possible connections!

[Superully]

just realized something: could it be that this yama adapter is in fact a jamma adapter for the tv ideal slot?

[Etienne MacGyver]

that last one looks like that is indeed a jamma

and it says "part jamma" which i see as this is the part side, and the other side is the solders side..

there will be something you can use here in your alusticker package 

[Superully]

there will be something you can use here in your alusticker package 

hmm, what could that be? thx etienne, you rock as always!

anyway, today i fired up the testing station for the first time and i wanted to start with that yama adapter and a jamma klax pcb, but there was a slight problem



it just wouldn't fit! i've checked the wiring against the jamma pinout yesterday and everything seemed to be a perfect match, i just wonder what's wrong. unfortunately, i don't have any other jamma pcb to test the connector on. any ideas?



a little bit frustrated, i pulled out an untested popeye pcb i got from toralf "timepilot" a couple of weeks ago (which included a right of return of it wasn't working). amongst the tons of connectors that came with the testing station there was also one labeled popeye which i slipped into the tv ideal slot of the station. measured voltages on the connector and everything was as it's supposed to be. so i switched off the testing station, hooked up the pcb and fired the station on again. at first there was a sync problem on the screen, but after adjusting sync on one of the knobs, here's what i got



from what i can tell, the colors are not perfect, but the screen is working as it should, i can make the necessary adjustments, sound is playing fine, i'm really happy about it!



however, i've only used the left section of the entire testing station, no idea yet what the middle and the right section are good for because the left section is working fine without them. any ideas?

[Etienne MacGyver]

Dont you read responses to your own topic ? 
taken from the first page of this thread...

- let's talk about the two devices on the right: the left one seems to be for AC voltages, but what about the right one: AC and DC? and what are those switches in the lower right corner good for (never seen the symbol next to the red switch)?

The left looks like a adjustable isolation transformer

the right looks like a 10 amp ajustable regulated powersupply (a "labvoeding" as we dutchies like to call it )

the white switch has two marks, "~" which i assume is AC, and "=" for DC output

The mark next to the red switch looks to me like a double pole switch, so i think it cuts the power completely when switched off, and not only one line of the two

- let's talk about the two devices on the right: the left one seems to be for AC voltages, but what about the right one: AC and DC? and what are those switches in the lower right corner good for (never seen the symbol next to the red switch)?

The left looks like a adjustable isolation transformer

yup, also called a Variac. Got one of those but never used. They can be handy when fuses keep blowing on f.i. monitors though....