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(2017-07-16, 20:02)kevinmcc Wrote: Looking at the soldier joints, some appear to have a lot of solder that flowed through the via, others do not.
I would double check that the solder joints are making good connections and none are shorting.
Are you still using a 1A power supply?
You may want to try a bigger supply.
Had really good luck with this one.
https://www.powerstream.com/AC-1898.htm
I re-checked every solder joint with a multimeter and I still haven't found anything suspicious.
Still using the 1A supply; I don't think I have a
USB power supply with more than 1A output, I'll have to look.
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Is the firmware installed correctly for blue? Do not mix it with red?!
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Worth checking the crystals easy mistake. Looking at your board photo the reset/boot switches looked square, they are but the pin out isn't. Another long shot have you pressed each button a few times? Just in case one is stuck. Nothing a miss on the other side of the board, no solder splashes?
Does the GPS LED near the GPS Rx module ever light up or start winking? It's hard to tell from the video. Just been up into the loft to video my systems boot sequence which is:
Power up: Lo beep, Pwr, Mod, Net, GPS front panel (Fp) leds on.
Very quickly changes to: Pwr, Flt, Alm on.
1 second.
GPS Rx led starts to wink on/off.
1/2 second.
Pwr, Flt on.
Hi beep.
Pwr, Mod, Net on, GPS Rx continues to wink.
Hi beep.
A second or so later the GPS Rx LED stops winking.
Up to a minute then GPS Fp LED starts to flash and signals are sent to server.
Note that my very brief (just a few video frames) initial LED pattern is the same as yours but your system doesn't switch to Pwr, Flt, Alm. If you have a TTL to serial/USB convertor a boot log ought to be available from controllers serial port.
Cheers
Dave.
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Station 1918 is online! 
Today I had planned to do some investigations using the log obtained via the serial port. To my surprise, however, the board seemed to function normally when powered via the serial port, and no suspicious messages were displayed in the terminal. So, I thought the problem must be power-related. Thus I tried a 2A power supply, with the same result - endless reboot. Then, measuring the voltage at the USB mini plug... surprise:
2.8V. I looked around in the junk box and found a short (~50cm) cable and it works just fine: the board gets 4.92V.
Here's my brand new 1.5m USB A - USB mini B cable, which was causing the problems:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgbobyuydujby9...8.JPG?dl=0
I was then able to access the web interface, create my account, update the firmware to 8.2 and connect the station to the network. Now I'll have to see what the next steps are, what else needs to be configured, and find a permanent location for the station; but for now, I'll just leave it where it is and pat myself on the back.
My sincere thanks to everyone who helped me with ideas for troubleshooting!
Bogdan
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Great News. With 2.8 V at the USB mini plug I'm surprised that there was so much sign of life from the controller. It's known that USB leads vary greatly in the amount of copper they do (or don't) contain. Though to drop 2 V I think your new lead must have been faulty, it certainly is now with the end chopped off. B-)
*LOTS* of things to configure. Be aware that the firmware doesn't grey things out you can't adjust, it just doesn't show them. So just wandering about the web interface may not show you all the available options/settings. One of the things to do is get an idea of what the VLF enviorment is like for you. Nice and quiet or electric fence ticks every secondish or VLF transmitters within a few tens of miles or noise from one (or more) SMPSUs in devices or as plug in "transformers".
Cheers
Dave.
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Just looked on Lightningmaps.org (LMO) wow your noise level looks like mine! Something large close to 22 kHz then a second harmonic at 44 kHz and third at 66 kHz (approx). I wonder what that is, time to start tracking it down and doing something about it.
Wish I could do the same. I doubt our Ministry of Defence would turn off the two VLF transmitters on 19.6 kHz and 22.1 kHz that put in massive carriers here. The 60 kHz time signal or other MOD VLF Tx on 81 kHz are much less of a problem.
Cheers
Dave.
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Well, I'm in the middle of the city, so the radio spectrum isn't the cleanest.
I'll take it slowly, reading the documents that are available on blitzortung.org and should I have any questions, I know where to come.
