Just the 3-up in my hand for a quick picture.You might be able to tell that the slots are parallel to each other, but not to the edge of the board.
Anyway, I had received the boards first with the boards for the solder station, and had set them aside since the order from Mouser was back-ordered. Once I received the parts, I began with taking a bit of time at work to do the switches.
I took pictures as I soldered the wires to the switch. Deformity/dents on the heatshrink tubing on the last couple pictures is from trying to recover the unshrunk diameter of the tube since it shrunk while I was soldering.
Some closer shots. The LED polarity is marked on the plastic of the switch though the LED legs follow the usual "anode leg is longer than the cathode leg".
Obviously I shrunk the heatshrink around the soldered ends.
Both switches after shrinking.
I then covered the wires with larger heatshrink tubing to make it look a bit nicer (though it wouldn't be visible anyway).
Before and after.
I then utilised some larger heatshrink that had some adhesive on the inside to try to keep the stress away from the solder joints. I was lucky that the outside diameter of the tubing was less than the bushing. The adhesive heatshrink tubing took a lot longer to shrink since the wall was thicker and the adhesive also need to absorb the heat to activate.
Before and after. It didn't turn out entirely like I wanted it to, but it at least was adhered to the switch body.
With that done, I needed to drill out the holes in the 3.5" to 5.25" external bay adapter for the switches. The week before I had observed how to utilise the vertical mill at work for basic usage, so I was relatively prepared the day after making the switches to drill the holes into the panel.
I had decided beforehand that I would utilise the vertical mill, since I would be able to keep the holes aligned horizontally even if I was off a bit vertically - I wanted this to look nice. I was also thinking to get a drawing out to have the machinist drill them out for me, but I didn't really want to deal with the awkwardness of asking him directly and/or asking the manager to have him do it.. Anyway, picture time.
Different views of the newly modified bracket.
I also drilled some small holes for securing the cable to the bracket to further remove stress from the solder joints as I had forgotten to mention before posting the pictures (which were done the day after). I next installed the switches and found why I was supposed to drill the holes larger, which is because of a boss of a different diameter that the O-ring fits around. Had I drilled it out to the proper size, the switches would be able to sit flat while compressing the rings, but that didn't happen and I didn't have access to anything larger than a 1/2" drill (I think the datasheet for the switch calls for a 13.6mm hole).
I decided to ignore it and keep working, since it wasn't entirely noticeable, and with the second switch, I tweaked the adhesive heatshrink too much and heard a snap. I think my heart stopped for a moment since I was hoping to hell that the snap wasn't from the LED legs. I took a moment with the semi-broken multimeter (the one seen in one of the pictures from the solder station project thing) to checked the forward voltage, which gave me a reading and drove the LED to light up enough to ease my fears; I also checked the switch, though I doubted the lugs would be able to snap like that - switch function passed. The snap was probably caused by the adhesive detaching from the switch body. I then secured the cables to the bracket once the nuts were tightened.
Front-ish and top view. Semi-broken multimeter in the background of the front view image.
I then reattached the multi-card reader to the bracket before reinstalling it into Melty.
Same views as before with the card reader, and the assembly installed in Melty.
After spending a couple hours cable managing, I found that the Hirose connectors were not going to work with the Iwiss crimpers I currently had, and went with utilising a pair of needlenose pliers to do what I could to crimp them to the wire. After loading the plugs correctly, I shrank the heatshrink tubing before making the power harness. I decided to use red for the cable to the switch on the right side of the case, so that I would be able to differentiate between the cables if I ever wanted to change the button order.
The best-attempt crimp job, finished left switch harness, process of the right switch harness, and the power cable harness.
I then connected the power harness and then tucked the three cables awkwardly "in" the PSU shroud so that they would kinda stay put and not cause too much trouble.
New cable management, 5 volt power for switchbox added, inside shots, front shot (though probably not needed).
I tucked Melty back under the "desk" and hooked her back up before relaxing for the night and the next morning I began assembly on the board.
The usual pictures.
When it came time to the jacks, I soldered one of the three legs to the board and was going to utilise the PCI panel to line them up better when I found out that I screwed up the spacing between the jacks.
This actually isn't the correct panel (this one has 8 holes and not 9), but you can still tell that the spacing is wrong.
I was upset that had made that sort of mistake and decided to set it all aside and change gears to the solder station boards.
I forgot to mention that when I was drilling the holes for the bracket, I drilled out the holes in the correct PCI panel out larger so that the shoulder washers that I purchased would work with it and isolate the sleeve signals from one another. I also bead blasted it and painted it with some matte spray paint, but I never took pictures of it.
Anyway, I took the "wrong" panel to work to use the pin gauges to measure the diameter of the holes and it varied within a couple thousandths. I also measured between the diameters of the holes and also measured between the out-most two holes and divided by 8. I think it was when I was using the pin gauges when I realised the panel had 8 holes and not 9. The difference between measuring one and measuring the total and then dividing by 8 was one or two thousandths difference, so I think I took the result from dividing by 8 since that would be a bit more nominal than just taking the one measurement between two of the holes.
I decided to redraw the PCB instead of trying to fix the current one as I didn't want to have to deal with the existing polygons and traces. Surprisingly, it actually didn't take as long to redraw it, since some of the values would be staying the same between the new and old boards, and I sent the design to OSH Park once I was satisfied.
Before and after ratsnest tool.
I decided to bead blast the "wrong" panel during lunch to get the weird crud off the back (which was also present on the "correct" panel) and to make it a bit nicer. There's still some discolouration from where the crud was, and I'm guessing there was some sort of corrosion going on with its previous utility.
I just don't think my camera likes taking a good shot of the bead blasting.
I had found out that there were cheaper crimp tools to be able to crimp the tiny Hirose connectors, and after finding what it was and verifying in the list, I found it on Amazon and promptly ordered them.
I had booted Melty into Windows to check if I was having the same errors that a friend was having with a game and noticed that my files drive was offline, and after verifying it in Manjaro, I powered her down and investigated. Eventually I found a SATA cable unplugged from the motherboard and then I removed the one above it to plug the one that become unplugged back in (since I couldn't manipulate it back into the port with the one above it still plugged in) before plugging the one above it back in.
I then did a test tug and it became unplugged. I found that the release latch was designed just right so in a stacked configuration like that, the plug above it would depress it enough to where it wouldn't latch. I really didn't want to rerun the SATA cables (or even mess with any of the cables), and decided on trying to flatten the release latch so that it hopefully wouldn't do it again. After some careful squeezing with a pair of pliers, I got it flattened enough to where it stayed latched with the other SATA cable plugged in above it. The only thing is that it seemed like the release latch was dangerously close to the edge of the moulding that keeps it down.
Before and after.
While it wasn't directly related to the project, it was caused by this project. Anyway, the day after I crimped new connectors to the switch harnesses with the new crimp tool (Engineer Inc. PA-20), noticing that some of the previous contacts came off a bit too easily.
Just an after image because I was kinda in a hurry.
I had also really awkwardly used my new heatgun to shrink the new tubing, but it turned out well enough. The boards were supposed to arrive that day as well and I spent time desoldering all the components from the PCB, and once I was done with that, I just killed time in my room as I checked the tracking number.
Unfortunately, the boards never showed up, and for whatever reason, it took the package seven hours to get to the local post office from the main one which probably isn't more than an hour away. I was irate that the rest of my Saturday went to waste, but after getting home on Monday from work, I got the boards and quickly started on finishing the project.
The usual views. Yay 3.1! (Maybe "Yay!"...)
I first set the jacks into the PCB and checked the hole spacing to ensure myself that this wasn't going to all go horribly wrong at the last moment again, and i was definitely reassured.
Blast that bloody window!
I quickly began soldering the components back to the board, starting with the resistor, and I almost soldered the Molex header before the relays but I caught myself before I let too much solder flow.
Progress.
Being paranoid doesn't hurt sometimes, right?
With just one leg of the jack soldered, I tried a few things to try to keep the jacks aligned before deciding on just utilising "brute force". Once it was soldered, it looked fairly nice in the panel.
Still have a bit more to go.
Since there was the leftover PCB from when they were connected to the other PCBs in the panel at the board house, I decided to see if I could file it away enough so that it wouldn't interfere with the panel later on, and I was surprised with how easy it was - I just wished I thought about it before soldering the jacks on.
I think you can tell?
With how wide the outermost diameter of the shoulder washer is, I knew I had to cut them down so that they wouldn't overlap, and while I should've done it Saturday, I was a bit too frustrated with the post to do so. As I began cutting the first, I decided on a pattern, where the middle would be uncut, and the others would "D" outward from it.
The pattern as I was cutting the shoulder washers. The cuts shoulder washer, with the shoulder up.
Luckily it didn't take too long, and I awkwardly tightened the nuts with a pair of needlenose pliers (after failing to use a slotted screwdriver on one side of the nut). I tried to get the slots to line up, but eventually gave up.
Finger-tightened and plier-tightened.
Now that the board is assembled, it was time to install it. I first chose the slot directly above the Sound Blaster card, but found that I'd have no space at all for the plugs, so I moved it to the one above that. I also had a tight spacing issue with the 1394 front header plug, and so after I moved it up, that was no longer an issue.
Harnesses connected to the board, switchboard in the originally-intended location, switchboard in the revised location.
Next was to connect all the right-angle stereo plugs into their proper spots and to test out the sound. I ended up switching the spots for orange and black because of the Logitech's X540 cable harness. It obviously doesn't matter as long as the flanking cables are of the same "colour".
Views of the semi-organised "mess".
Manjaro passed the surround sound test, while I had a weird issue with Windows - the surround speakers were putting sound out through the center and sub while the centre and sub was coming through front speakers (or something like that). I checked that everything was correctly plugged in and such, and eventually looked up the manual to see that I had shifted plugs to the right by one jack when I had put Melty back under the "desk". After fixing the cables, Windows passed the surround sound test.
The semi-organised "mess", revised.
I think I explained that the LEDs in the switches would light for the soundcard not in use. So when the motherboard's soundcard is "active", the switch to change to the Sound Blaster card would be the lit LED, and vice versa. Probably a bit easier to see...
Sound Blaster card "active", motherboard soundcard "active".
I was done, I was satisfied, and I cleaned up whatever I needed to clean up and take care of other things before heading to bed.
Recently I found an Iwiss ratcheting crimper that works with JST connectors, which I think are very similar to the tiny Hirose connectors I use, and I had saved it in my wishlist while my compatibility question went unanswered on Amazon. Eventually I went ahead and ordered it to test it out for myself, since it seemed like I wasn't ever going to get an answer. I received it last week and first utilised it on the breadboard power cable, confirming my theory.
Today, I decided to redo the connectors (third time's a charm, eh?) since I was pulling out the bracket out to remount the card reader with washers, and ended up redoing 6 of the 8 connectors (two of them were crimped too well with the Engineer Inc. crimper and didn't want to come off at all). It was obviously a lot less awkward to redo the heatshrink now that the cable ends aren't inside Melty.
Four connectors after crimping new connectors, two connectors after crimping the new connectors (red and white), and completed ends. Also, dry skin is dry.
I also poked around and had a suspicion that some sheet metal screws from work (it comes with one of the parts that is purchased, but doesn't get used) was similar in diameter and thread to the ones that held the bracket to the case, and after confirming my suspicions, I decided to utilise them to secure the bracket to the case even further, although the screws are much longer than the ones that came with the bracket.
Longscrew is long (but doesn't encounter anything).
After getting the bracket back in Melty, I re-ran the cables and did a bit of cable management, closing her up once I was done (though I forgot to reconnect the USB 3.0 front panel to the header).
Inside views. I tied the cables from the card reader and a SATA power cable to the edge of the 3.5" drive bay (a bit hard to see minus the red cable ties).
I also meant to take a picture earlier of the cable management of the top fan cable, where I removed the pins from the housing and threaded it through the hole of the cable tie-down loop of the motherboard tray to get a much neater look.
Black (or red) heatshrink would make it look even better, but I realised too late. C'est la vie.
The relays are actually audible this time, since the board is attached to the panel via the audio jack threads. It's not a huge deal, since it's just one simple "click", though I doubt there's an easy way to silence the relays anyway.
The only way to improve this project is to have it auto-switch, but I think that requires parts I'm not familiar to using.
I think the main thing I learned with this project is to not assume. I only really took a ruler and thought that the hole spacing (centre to centre) is about 1mm without taking my calipers and measuring the actual spacing between the holes (by edge) and the diameter of the hole itself. Had I known I was going to screw up ahead of time, I probably would've made a proper 4-layer board with the sound traces in the inner layers, so that the ground planes would properly shield them from EMI. I suppose I could improve it that way, but I've already spent enough money on this project.
Eventually I'll work on the Raspberry Pi clock project, but it's just a side project and not a main project like this or the solder station. For now, I'll be able to focus on story-writing since I have about 3-4 stories I want to work on (one of them just needs another pass of proofreading), and sometimes I don't want to pull myself away from it to do other things.
Anyway, ciao for now!
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