Summary of Contents for Eggtimer Rocketry Eggtimer Quark
- Page 1 Eggtimer Quark Assembly Manual Board Rev D3 © 2021 Eggtimer Rocketry All Rights Reserved...
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Page 2: Limited Warranty
If your Eggtimer Quark does not work properly after assembly, take a deep breath, get out the magnifying glass and a good light, and see if you have inadvertently created a solder bridge somewhere. -
Page 3: California Proposition 65 Warning
California Proposition 65 Warning WARNING: This product contains chemicals (lead) known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or reproductive harm. This kit includes a special low-temperature ultra-fine leaded solder wire. Including the solder with the kit ensures that you will have solder that can be used to mount the surface-mount parts in the kit. - Page 4 Like other Eggtimer Rocketry products, we sell it as a kit, to keep costs down and provide an outstanding value. This means that you have to do a little work, of course, but considering that most hobby rocketeers that would use our products have some degree of electronics expertise, this should not be much of an impediment.
- Page 5 it MUST be compatible. You want a liquid (not paste) water-based no-clean flux. Kester 951 is ideal, if you can get it. Chip-Quik sells little 2ml tubes for about $2 each (unfortunately they sell them in 6-packs, you can’t just get one) which works very well. If you decide to add flux, you must use only a tiny amount.
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Page 6: General Assembly Information
General Assembly Information We’re sure that you are ready get started, but before you do you will need to get some tools together. The tools that you will need are: Low-wattage soldering iron, 15W or less, with a fine conical tip Small needle-nose pliers Small diagonal cutters Tweezers to handle the SMT parts... - Page 7 Assembling your Quark Step 1: Sort the Components Before you start soldering anything, you need to lay everything out and make sure that you are familiar with all of components, and that you have everything. (Yes, we ARE human and sometimes make mistakes…...
- Page 8 The Eggtimer Quark Limited Warranty does not cover incorrect assembly, so if you mess up badly enough you may end up having to get another kit and starting over;...
- Page 9 The Eggtimer Quark Limited Warranty does not cover damage to parts while attempting to desolder them because you inserted something incorrectly. We spent a lot of time making...
- Page 10 Mount the Top 100K resistor Tin the right pad of the top 100K resistor, marked “104” on the right side of the board. While heating up the tinned pad, place the 100K (104) resistor on the center of the pad. Remove the soldering iron, and let it cool for 5 seconds before you let go of the resistor.
- Page 11 Mount the Top Driver Chip Locate the top driver chip on the board, it’s just below the 104 resistor that you just mounted. Lightly tin the upper-right pad on the board. Remove one of the driver chips from its carrier. Look at the writing with a magnifier…...
- Page 12 Carefully solder the lower-right pad. Check the pad with a 10x jeweler’s loupe to make sure that the solder joint covers both the lead of the chip and the pad on the PC board. It’s very easy to get solder on the chip’s lead but miss the PC board pad; a good solder joint should actually flow underneath the chip lead and bond the “elbow”...
- Page 13 Left Hand Leads Mount the Bottom 100K resistor Tin the right pad of the bottom 100K resistor, marked “104” on the right side of the board, just below the driver chip that you just mounted. Solder the bottom 100K resistor in place in the same manner as the top one. Mount the Bottom Driver Chip You will now mount the bottom driver chip…...
- Page 14 Locate the bottom driver chip on the board, it’s just below the 104 resistor that you just mounted. Lightly tin the upper-right pad on the board. Remove one of the driver chips from its carrier. Look at the writing with a magnifier…...
- Page 15 Locate the space for the processor, it’s a 14-pin chip on the right side of the board. Note that there is a notch on the “top” side of the processor; this will help you orient the chip properly. Lightly tin the upper-left lead of the processor pads on the PC board. Remove the processor from it’s package, and inspect it with a 10x jeweler’s loupe.
- Page 16 Mount the .1 uF Capacitor Next to the Processor Tin the right pad of the .1 uF capacitor next to the processor. Solder the capacitor in place in the same manner as the resistors. Note that the right pad is next to the upper-right pad on the processor... they are actually connected, so don’t worry about any extra solder getting on the processor lead.
- Page 17 Mount the 10K Resistor Locate the 10K resistor pads, it’s next to the Pin 1 mark on the processor and is marked “103” on the board. Tin the right pad of the 10K resistor next to the processor. Solder the 10K resistor in place in the same manner as the other resistors. Note: Unlike the .1 uF capacitor that you soldered earlier, this resistor does NOT connect to the nearby processor lead, so if you get a solder bridge between the two you will need to remove the excess solder with some desoldering wick.
- Page 18 Mount the Two 4.7K Resistors Locate the spot for the two 4.7K resistors, they’re just to the left of the silver baro sensor and are marked “472” on the board. Tin the right pad of the top 4.7K resistor. Solder the top 4.7K resistor in place in the same manner as the other resistors & capacitors.
- Page 19 Mount the 10 uF Capacitors Locate the space for the 10 uF capacitor just above the two 4.7K resistors. Solder the 10 uF capacitor in place in the same manner as the other resistors & capacitors. Locate the second 10 uF capacitor, to the left of the processor and the .1 uF capacitor. Solder the 10 uF capacitor in place in the same manner as the other resistors &...
- Page 20 Mount the Voltage Regulator Locate the spot for the voltage regulator on the PC board, it’s near the left side of the board. You’ll see that there is one large pad on the right side, and three smaller pads on the left side.
- Page 21 Solder the other two smaller leads, then solder the large tab to its pad on the board. It’s OK if there’s a pretty fair amount of solder on the pads… that will actually help with heat conduction. If necessary, go back and resolder the pad that you tinned earlier. Mount the Rectifier Diode Locate the spot on the PC board for the diode, it’s at the far left side of the board and has a mark with an arrow and a line at one end.
- Page 22 Mount the Buzzer Locate the spot for the buzzer, there are two holes: one just to the left of the processor, and one just below the 10K/103 resistor. The one next to the 10K resistor has a “+” marking next to it. When you mount the buzzer it will cover a few of the parts, so you need to check the solder joints on a few of them right now with a 10x jeweler’s loupe, and touch them up if necessary.
- Page 23 Turn the board over, and solder the two leads to the pads. With a set of small diagonal cutters, clip off any extra leads. Turn the board back over, and remove the tape. Also remove the protective cover on the buzzer. Mount the Headers Locate the spot for the three 3-pin headers near the bottom-center of the PC board.
- Page 24 Locate the spot for the terminal block on the far right side of the PC board. Inspect the terminal block, you’ll notice that one end has larger holes and the other end appears to be closed off. Install the terminal block in the mounting holes, so that the larger holes are on the RIGHT side of the board (the edge).
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Page 25: Preliminary Testing
If you get this far, congratulations! At this point, you need to get out the Eggtimer Quark User’s Guide, and perform the baro and deployment tests. Once everything passes, you’re... -
Page 26: Troubleshooting
The Eggtimer Quark Limited Warranty does not cover damage to a component while attempting to unsolder it, so make take your time and make sure you get it right before you solder. - Page 27 Check Your Battery & Connector Make sure that you are using one of the recommended batteries to test with. Make sure that you have the polarity correct: The RED wires must go to the “+” side and the BLACK wires must go to the “-“...
- Page 28 Troubleshooting Tips (in approximate order of likelihood) No Beep When the Battery is Connected • Check the polarity of the buzzer… it may be in backwards • Bad solder joint on the processor • Incorrect battery polarity, or bad solder joint on battery connector pads •...