Stupid Failures

 After assuming that it was the PWM controller that had died on the Screwdriver controller recently, I finally got around to troubleshooting it a little more. In a rush, not having realised that the pot on the board had an off position, I'd hastily added a DPST switch into the mix so I could ensure that I could cut the power from the PWM board in case it added noise. 

It would seem that one side - the negative side no less had failed on that switch. Of all the stupid things. I disconnected them, soldered them together and moved on. 

The 5v regulator appeared a couple of days ago and I finally got around to wiring that in. 

A quick test run was successful. With the pot just past "on", it the motor doesn't quite move. Turning it up from there does exactly what is expected. At reasonably manageable speeds.

It's now what I consider to be functional. I just need the weather to improve so I can take it all outside and have a crack at it. 

IN other HAM related news, I've ordered a Mat-180H ATU for the IC706. It's not "necessary" as much as I really need a comparison against the ATU100. I'm also a little sick of the annoyances that come with the ATU100 - it adds noise if I keep it charging (via USB) given the battery won't keep up for any significant period, it doesn't always tune requiring 3 or 4 attempts, and well, it's not entirely automatic.

The MAT-180H is setup for the Icom. It draws power from it. It has thousands of memories, as opposed to none in the ATU100 (though it does seem to recall where it was tuned last), and it's really just "there". If the radio decides it needs to tune it, it will. It seems like it should do the job. Jury is out how well it does said job, but I'm keen to see.  It does also allow you to manually tweak the tuning to get a little more out of it if required. 

The noise floor seems to be a bit up there on 40m at the moment. I had assumed it was either me changing the balun on the dipole, or the addition of a 6KVA UPS on the otherside of the wall. Listening to a remote SDR north of Adelaide suggests that perhaps I'm not entirely alone.