Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Another stage of the clock is done: the tens-of-minutes digit.  This time it did not work when I fired it up.  Yay!  Troubleshooting!  But the fun didn't last for long, as the problem turned out to be the same trace broken, on the same (2^3) flip-flop, as I ran into on the prescaler.  Once I saw the symptom (stuck 2^3 bit) I went right to the problem.  One jumper, just as before, and that problem was fixed.  There was another small problem: the top segment of the LED wasn't lighting for a 5.  That problem could only be a particular decoder diode, so I went looking for it – and discovered a single unsoldered joint on the exact diode that had to be the source of the problem.  One press of the soldering iron and everything worked.  Photos of the current state of the clock:

There are a whole bunch of components on there!  So far the kit has been darned near perfect.  A couple of board errors for a board this complex isn't exactly unusual.  If it was being manufactured in large quantities, the sorts of broken traces I ran into would be tweaked out.  Undoubtedly this is a low volume board, so these sorts of problems are totally forgivable.  Lots of extra components are included, though I haven't needed any so far.  There wasn't quite enough solder included; I ran out partway through this stage.  I have a big roll, though, so that's a non-issue.

The weather continues to be cold (around 20°F) and intermittently snowy.  Some of my neighbors are plowing, but I'm holding off as there's more snow int the forecast...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Right now we are mostly pondering the weather, which has turned snowy with no warning at all.  When we went to bed last night, the forecast was for overcast and no precipitation.  When we got up this morning (at 3 am), it was snowing – and now the forecast calls for snow throughout the morning.  We've accumulated a couple inches already, and the roads are icy.  Current radar image (at 8:30 am) is at right – all that blue stuff is where it's snowing.  I just got back from a trip to our local hardware store, and I pulled one car of the ditch on the way there, and another on the way home – and that's on one 3.5 mile stretch!  People here actually know how to drive in the snow, so when you see cars in the ditch, you know the roads are slippery...

Last night I finished another digit (the minutes digit) on my clock kit.  Once again, it all worked on the first try – and I'm a little disappointed that I don't get to troubleshoot anything.  Now I've started on the tens-of-minutes digit.  It's beginning to look possible that I might finish the kit this weekend – especially if the snowy weather keeps me indoors!

Here's the scene just a few minutes ago from my office window.  Tim's horses don't seem to mind the snow at all – they're out there in the alfalfa field, mowing that alfalfa down into the dirt.

Time for me to go have some breakfast.  I sense an open-faced turkey sandwich, with dressing, in my immediate future!