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Hi Guys:
My MS project is underway. I bought this unit assembled and tested and the Flyback board is included. Is seems to work OK - I have tested with the Stimulator board.

The 1st issue I'm running into is that the wires which the builder used to connect the Flyback board to the main MS board are pretty thick - so thick that when the insulation is removed, the copper ‘bundle’ cannot pass through the holes in the main board. To 'solve' this, the builder trimmed off some of the copper filaments and soldered the remainder to the board (I think the photo illustrates this OK). This has made the connections way too brittle to be reliable. In fact, the red lead has already come adrift.

My question is whether I can replace these thick wires with thinner ones so that the entire copper 'bundle' can be soldered to the main board? Surely, the weak link in the chain (electrically) are the thin copper tracks on the MS board, not the wires which connect the main board to the FlyBack board?
I’d like to get some special wire which uses much thinner filaments and is for that reason more flexible and conductive. What have other MS builders used?
I know I can wire the black (-) wire to the case and the red (+) wire to the MS terminal 28/LJet terminal 29 so its just the remaining 4 I need to figure out.

Cheers,

Close-up shot.

Michael,
That thick wire certainly looks dodgy and by cutting strands of wire defeats the purpose of using heavier guage wire. All the wires I used passed through as a "bundle". I have had no problems with wires getting hot., etc. I agree, the circuit board tracks are much thinner than even a thin copper wire.
I would take them out and replace with thinner "complete wire".

David

The flyback board instructions suggest 20-22ga jumper wire. I followed these directions and the wires are a bit too stiff. I suggest 20-22ga *stranded* wire. I haven't tried it yet, but I think the stranded wire will still fit through the small holes in the pc board.

Bill in MD

OK thanks Bill - I'll see what I can find.
I just got my order from Digikey with all the parts needed to convert my MS board to Steve Rossers' specs ... so the wiring is the last thing I'll need to address.

Hi Micheal,

You're on the right path, just use thinner gauge wire & you'll be fine. There isn't a very high current requirement on any of those 4 wires and the "weakest link" will therefore always be the tracks within the PCB.

bmacf wrote:The flyback board instructions suggest 20-22ga jumper wire. I followed these directions and the wires are a bit too stiff. I suggest 20-22ga *stranded* wire. I haven't tried it yet, but I think the stranded wire will still fit through the small holes in the pc board.

Bill in MD

Hi Bill:

Have you found any online sources for this "*stranded*" wire?
I've searched locally without much success.

i like your photography mike, do you have any of the fuel pump circuit... i can't see anything on Steve R's guide !

i'm having trouble picturing the inverted transistors.

that zoomed in pic of the fuel circuit would be great! or a link to a good pic if you can't do it.

thanks!

joe

re: 22 ga. stranded wire

Michael, Actually I got my stranded wire at Radio Shack. Be careful, its hard to tell their solid wire from the stranded wire the way its labeled (small print).

I decided to use stranded wire on all the wires from the main board up to the stim board. I've been taking the box apart so often with the R10 changes that the solid wires started to break.

to Joey, next time I open up my MS box I'll try to take some better alt. fuel pump circuit pictures. Unfortunately I put some silicone goo on the components so they wouldn't vibrate and fail - I'll see what I can do.

Bill in MD
MS on 3.0 Milano still has tach spikes.

joey wrote:i like your photography mike, do you have any of the fuel pump circuit... i can't see anything on Steve R's guide !

i'm having trouble picturing the inverted transistors.

that zoomed in pic of the fuel circuit would be great! or a link to a good pic if you can't do it.

thanks!

joe

Absolutely - I'll take some pics when I get home tonight. Its not too pretty but the fuel pump relay works correctly

Cheers,

Hi:

Here are the pics - not quite as clear as I'd like, but I hope they are of some help...

Cheers,

thanks so much mike, thats so much clearer i have a good idea how to proceed !

thanks again,

joe

ps: i have a problem sourcing the transistors ! i'll post this in a a new thread so i dont mess up this one for you guys... i dont think this will apply to US and UK. But please have a look - someone will surely know!

one more thing... Steve R's guide calls for 4 more caps... 2x0.01uF, a 0.1uF and a 0.22uF...

i know that you need one 0.01uF for C12, but i can also see in mike's pic, he also has a 0.01uF cap mounted under the board, did you find this "dave cap" necessary to keep spikes down? or did you just do it anyway? did you try it before and after? any improvement?

i take it the other caps are to up the farads if that doesn't work?

Spot on Joey, the suggestion was get them in advance as they are really inexpensive anyway to save hunting for them if you need them.

hey mike,

thanks again for those pics, but the thread on the fuel pump mod made me look again at your pic... judging by your q5, i've mounted all my other transistors the same way. maybe i'm way off here, but your q3 looks mounted differently.... shouldn't the curved side be facing us in your pic? it looks to me that your collector is hooked up to the resistor? or is this a non-standard MS transistor (by that i mean PN2222A type) that you put in q3? it looks kinda squarish to me and different to q5...

thanks,

joe