There is a upcoming 'Makers Fair' in Atlanta, and several of the local Ham Radio clubs are going to have a display there. They will demo some equipment and modes of operation. There will also be several hand's on activities for the attendees.
I decided to rebuild the SNA Jr. as part of the exhibit. I redesigned the circuit board, making it a little larger to make it easier to build. Being larger it will no longer fit in the Altoids tin, but I found a metal Crayola Crayon box that was the right size.
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I also found a nice small 12 V battery pack with charger on e-bay, they are available in several amp hour ratings. It is just the right size to fit under the circuit board. It has a built in On/Off switch and a separate cable with the charging connector, which makes it very easy to build into projects that are battery powered.
Since this will be a show and tell event, I needed to make it "pretty". Cutting the required holes in the lid of the tin, caused the metal to deform around the cuts. To make it smooth and sturdier, I glued a piece of .020" circuit board material on top of the lid, and filled in around the edges with some auto body filler. After a paint job, I applied some laser printed decals for labels. I also printed a fake bezel to put around the LCD display.
Along with the new circuit board, I also made a new RLB board that will connect directly to the SNA instead of having to use cables.
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Here is a picture of the finished unit with the attached RLB.
It shows a normalized scan of my 80-40 meter dual band dipole antenna. Using a RL-SWR table lookup, the SWR values are the same as when I scan the antenna with my FoxDelta Antenna Analyzer.
I have placed all files necessary for building
including Eagle files and toner transfer image
in the following dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/16bxycnl2xg7vqi/AADcMnY9LNpBBfRuFJkzlVD-a?dl=0
I decided to rebuild the SNA Jr. as part of the exhibit. I redesigned the circuit board, making it a little larger to make it easier to build. Being larger it will no longer fit in the Altoids tin, but I found a metal Crayola Crayon box that was the right size.
I also found a nice small 12 V battery pack with charger on e-bay, they are available in several amp hour ratings. It is just the right size to fit under the circuit board. It has a built in On/Off switch and a separate cable with the charging connector, which makes it very easy to build into projects that are battery powered.
Since this will be a show and tell event, I needed to make it "pretty". Cutting the required holes in the lid of the tin, caused the metal to deform around the cuts. To make it smooth and sturdier, I glued a piece of .020" circuit board material on top of the lid, and filled in around the edges with some auto body filler. After a paint job, I applied some laser printed decals for labels. I also printed a fake bezel to put around the LCD display.
Along with the new circuit board, I also made a new RLB board that will connect directly to the SNA instead of having to use cables.
Here is a picture of the finished unit with the attached RLB.
It shows a normalized scan of my 80-40 meter dual band dipole antenna. Using a RL-SWR table lookup, the SWR values are the same as when I scan the antenna with my FoxDelta Antenna Analyzer.
I have placed all files necessary for building
including Eagle files and toner transfer image
in the following dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/16bxycnl2xg7vqi/AADcMnY9LNpBBfRuFJkzlVD-a?dl=0
