• ​Joe`s Star Trek Communicator, second device

    05/26/2017 at 10:24 0 comments

    Today the second device was finished. It still lacks the LiPo battery which is needed for proper operation but all unit tests (accelerometer, microphone, speaker,...) were fine!

    LiPo was ordered some days ago, so hopefully it´ll arrive soon...Afterwards i can test both! :-)

    Details on Joe´s Communicator can be found here:

    https://hackaday.io/project/19700-star-trek-communicator-badge

  • Joe´s Star Trek Communicator

    05/07/2017 at 16:56 0 comments

    Some weeks ago I decided to built the Star Trek Communicator designed by Joe. After an insanely long journey of getting all parts together I finally managed to assemble my first rebuilt device today. It was built using Joe´s Design "v2p1" and a lasercut kapton stencil.

    Unfortunately my hotplate which I used for the soldering process is very magnetic and therefore some smd devices were kicked off directly at the moment I placed the pcb on it....What a pita! So after all, I killed one capacitor and two crystals but managed to get it up and running.

    The first time I plugged it into the USB port was extremely exciting, and...nothing happened. I somehow shorted the crystal after trying to fix the first faulty hotplate soldering with a manual soldering iron. The next crystal died on the same way and so I decided to try it again on the hotplate, but this time at its perimeter. Worked!

    At this time the accelerometer displays an interrupt after tapping, the microphone is showing something on the serial and the speaker gives out the "chirp". All tested with joes unit test codes, which work directly out of the box. Very cool !

    Two minor things: 1. After chirping the Teensy reboots; 2. Some background hum while chirping.

    Nevertheless, I´m very happy at the moment and I need to build a second one as soon as possible ! ;-)