Alpha Clock 5 Dead

[Jim Ujcik]

Howdy,

My clock was running great until this morning. Didn’t notice when it quit, but it was during a rather large thunderstorm (although we’ve had them through the summer too with no problem). I was also running my 2 meter radio and am not sure if I could have zapped the chips with RF (this was the first time I’ve tested the clock in a new position.) I know there’s good power. Nothing lights up, neither D2 or any of the red LED’s. Is there a way to get replacement chips? I had flashed it to v2 a couple of months ago and was just about to add the adafruit GPS, but hadn’t gotten to that mod yet. Love the clock, nice and easy to see when I’m radio operating. Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Jim Ujcik, WD9HBC

[Windell Oskay]

Hi Jim,

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble.  If the power is good, then you’re right that the chips should be the next suspect.  I’m not sure what could have happened– could be power surge related, for example. 

 The one other thing that you might try is to reprogram the clock, and see if it will accept that, either with an AVR ISP programmer or an FTDI type interface.  (Since you were thinking of reprogramming it, I suspect that you have one or both of these interfaces available.)

Otherwise, if you’re willing to, I’d ask that you return the chip set to us so that we can test them here, figure out what happened, and replace/reprogram/return them in working condition– please contact our store directly by e-mail or with the contact form. 

-Windell

[Jim Ujcik]

Hello Windell,

All is well. Reprogramming brought the radio back to life. Even my settings were still ok, only the time has to be reset. Thanks for a great product and fantastic support.

Jim, WD9HBC

[Windell Oskay]

Fantastic– glad to hear it!  

(But, I wonder what kind of inputs can cause the program to fail like that?)

[Jim Ujcik]

Hmmmm, would 50 watts from an antenna that’s 36 inches away at ~146 or ~444 MHz do it? That’s my suspicion because the HF didn’t seem to bother it, but that’s the first test of my VHF dual bander since the clock has been set up. I’m not really sure whether I want to do another “test” or not ;)

Jim, WD9HBC

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