Step 1 : Getting ready



OK, you've built your 595 board and you have LED's lit up, so now you need to know if the signal making it out of the board. This tester will tell you.
It is a simple pocket tester that you can use to check your boards and the cat5 you run to your SSR's.

Disclaimer... If you use any of the information provided here, you do so at your own risk. Any bad things happen from using this 'How To", it is 100% your liability.

Step 2 : The parts


The parts used for this tester is just left over stuff from my 595 and SSR builds. (you did order extra parts didn't you)

A small scrap piece of copper clad. 1"X1" It can be 1oz or 2oz copper, really doesn't matter. What ever you have will be fine.

One - 180 ohm resistor. The same resistor from the SSR in Sean's How To and the recent coop SSR board (2/07).
Four - LED's, Mouser Part #: 604-WP132XID These are the same ones used on Sean's "Making a Olsen 595" board
One - RJ45 pcb mount jack.
A hot glue gun

The trace file in .pdf is

Step 3 : Making the tester


Being that this board is really small I made it here on my desk. Use EXTREME caution working with Ferric Chloride! A small tank from a tic tac box, saftey bowl of a discarded D size battery package and a medicine cup for a water dip cup. The best thing I have found for dipping pcb's in the acid is the twist ties that come with garbage bags. Just drill a 1/16 or bit bigger hole in the board to put the twist tie through.

Step 4 :


After the board is etched you need to drill it. I used a .029 bit for the LED's and resistor and a 1/8" bit for the RJ45 jack.

The LED's goes into the board with the short lead (cathode) towards the RJ45 jack.
A note to soldering in the LED's. I soldered mine in flush with the board. This way it keeps the LED's from being able to snag anything and break off or break the solder joint, if you plan on carrying it around the yard.


After the soldering is done, we now want to use some hot glue to cover the solder joints with. This will cover all the sharp points so you can carry it in your pocket.
Wrap the board with making tape to make a 'bowl' to hold the hot glue. Make sure you have the tape sealed up on the 4 sides of the board. Just fill up the bowl with glue, use enough to cover the leads. Now that you have it glued up, allow the glue to cool and then you can remove the tape and trim the glue edges.

Step 5 :


Be extremely careful trimming the glue edges.
OK, now you're done. use a known good cable and hook it to your board and see if it has an output signal. You can also use this to check the cat5 runs to your SSR's, once you know your board is good.