Best grab a brew sit down and get ready for a ramble.
OK well I suppose I should start by saying that I have done a reasonable amount of soldering of electronics in the past but realistically that’s 20 years ago. I know Rik bought a new bit for his soldering iron so this is the business end of mine –
http://s86.photobucket.com/user/daveb2/media/project bits/Iron_zps23593b45.jpg.html < Link To
It’s a 30 year old 50W temperature controlled unit, pretty good in its day but nothing very special by today’s standards. To be fair if you’re more used to soldering up things like brass wagon kits with something a bit more plumbing related you may want to invest in something a little smaller.
So this is the kit as it arrives from David Theunissen
http://s86.photobucket.com/user/daveb2/media/project bits/Kit_zpsc1825e45.jpg.html < Link To
To it you’ll need to add interconnect wire, glue and some time. I’d guess I spent around 3 - 4 hours in 3 stints of just over an hour each. You may work faster or slower, on the first night I made a foolish but recoverable error and after that I checked and double checked 8|
The first night I drilled the case for the switches and pots. The document pack includes full size drilling templates and if you want to be prepared you’ll need 3.2, 5, 6.5, 7, 9 & 9.5mm bits to hand. The template doesn’t show the anti-rotation holes for the two pots so I decided to add those and as the skirt of the supplied knob will only just cover the hole I drilled under size and opened it to a slot with a Swiss file. Now this is where I dropped a clod that you won’t! There are two identical looking knobs, they are not the same so you have to put the right ones on the right shafts if you want both to fit without excessive blinding and cursing. Luckily the parts list is quite clear – if you read it. When I confessed I’d made such a silly error to David T he did say he had tried to get both the shafts the same size but failed to find a supply, but will be trying again.
The second night I did most of the wiring up. The wire I chose to use was a PTFE coated type rather than the more usual PVC as I while I don’t actually like working with PTFE I thought that it’s resistance to an accidental touch from my soldering iron given the confined space was worthwhile. I don’t believe I did catch any of the wires but then again that was the point of the choice. I did deviate slightly from the standard build by using thin heatshrink on some of the longer exposed wires like the resistor R35 you see in pic 6 of the instructions that goes from the “selecta” switch to the speed knob.
The third night saw the last of the wiring and the connection of the Tx2 PCA and I must admit I wish I’d used half a dozen different colours for the wires to the Tx2 as that would have avoided me having to work out which of the six anonymous white wires, that I'd passed through a length of heatshrink to keep it tidy -slap-, went where with a DVM. There’s a couple of useful picture of the wiring of the Tx2 on its own page of the DT website -
http://www.deltang.co.uk/tx2.htm
So at the end of the third night it was in a state to turn on and test – so I did, and everything worked as hoped straight off.
There is a calibration routine for the mid point on the speed control and to ensure my “selecta” channel 1 matches yours, it’s automatic , takes less than a minute and you can read how to do it at the bottom of this page -
http://www.deltang.co.uk/tx22b-kit.htm
I still need to make up battery and Tx brackets but if I do this bit wrong and foul it all up I’ll buy a Tx2 built up and swear Mr. T to secrecy
nphone:
Unfortunately I didn't take any mid build pictures but the "official" pics pretty much tell the story and while it is a bit tight for room at times there's nothing that's too difficult with a little bit of care. If you have a specific query I'll do my best to answer but I've emailed David T on a number of occassions before buying the kit and he's been helpful every time so I'm sure he'll help if I can't.
Dave
OK well I suppose I should start by saying that I have done a reasonable amount of soldering of electronics in the past but realistically that’s 20 years ago. I know Rik bought a new bit for his soldering iron so this is the business end of mine –
http://s86.photobucket.com/user/daveb2/media/project bits/Iron_zps23593b45.jpg.html < Link To
It’s a 30 year old 50W temperature controlled unit, pretty good in its day but nothing very special by today’s standards. To be fair if you’re more used to soldering up things like brass wagon kits with something a bit more plumbing related you may want to invest in something a little smaller.
So this is the kit as it arrives from David Theunissen
http://s86.photobucket.com/user/daveb2/media/project bits/Kit_zpsc1825e45.jpg.html < Link To
To it you’ll need to add interconnect wire, glue and some time. I’d guess I spent around 3 - 4 hours in 3 stints of just over an hour each. You may work faster or slower, on the first night I made a foolish but recoverable error and after that I checked and double checked 8|
The first night I drilled the case for the switches and pots. The document pack includes full size drilling templates and if you want to be prepared you’ll need 3.2, 5, 6.5, 7, 9 & 9.5mm bits to hand. The template doesn’t show the anti-rotation holes for the two pots so I decided to add those and as the skirt of the supplied knob will only just cover the hole I drilled under size and opened it to a slot with a Swiss file. Now this is where I dropped a clod that you won’t! There are two identical looking knobs, they are not the same so you have to put the right ones on the right shafts if you want both to fit without excessive blinding and cursing. Luckily the parts list is quite clear – if you read it. When I confessed I’d made such a silly error to David T he did say he had tried to get both the shafts the same size but failed to find a supply, but will be trying again.
The second night I did most of the wiring up. The wire I chose to use was a PTFE coated type rather than the more usual PVC as I while I don’t actually like working with PTFE I thought that it’s resistance to an accidental touch from my soldering iron given the confined space was worthwhile. I don’t believe I did catch any of the wires but then again that was the point of the choice. I did deviate slightly from the standard build by using thin heatshrink on some of the longer exposed wires like the resistor R35 you see in pic 6 of the instructions that goes from the “selecta” switch to the speed knob.
The third night saw the last of the wiring and the connection of the Tx2 PCA and I must admit I wish I’d used half a dozen different colours for the wires to the Tx2 as that would have avoided me having to work out which of the six anonymous white wires, that I'd passed through a length of heatshrink to keep it tidy -slap-, went where with a DVM. There’s a couple of useful picture of the wiring of the Tx2 on its own page of the DT website -
http://www.deltang.co.uk/tx2.htm
So at the end of the third night it was in a state to turn on and test – so I did, and everything worked as hoped straight off.
There is a calibration routine for the mid point on the speed control and to ensure my “selecta” channel 1 matches yours, it’s automatic , takes less than a minute and you can read how to do it at the bottom of this page -
http://www.deltang.co.uk/tx22b-kit.htm
I still need to make up battery and Tx brackets but if I do this bit wrong and foul it all up I’ll buy a Tx2 built up and swear Mr. T to secrecy
nphone: Unfortunately I didn't take any mid build pictures but the "official" pics pretty much tell the story and while it is a bit tight for room at times there's nothing that's too difficult with a little bit of care. If you have a specific query I'll do my best to answer but I've emailed David T on a number of occassions before buying the kit and he's been helpful every time so I'm sure he'll help if I can't.
Dave
, yours are very good though - did David mention to you he may make a USB based Tx as a more long term idea? That could certainly be useful for Rx set ups if he does.