So,
? ? ?after reading about this particular design i stumbled over various stores selling supposed clones of the design. As it suited my needs and my price point i pulled the trigger and ordered one. The device itself seems to be well constructed however it simply does not work as you would expect and fails to tune well even with a resonant antenna. Now I should stress I am not a constructor and my soldering skills are not of the highest quality so I would have no clue how to diagnose the problems with the units. However I have ended up with two of these and would dearly like to get them working. If there's anyone in the UK who might have the skills I'd be happy to send you my two units (yes I've got two of them) to see if the issue can be determined. In return I'd be happy to let the other party retain one of them for their own use.?

If anyone wants to take a look let me know.

thanks
Adam. (photos attached).

?

I’ve spent too much time on fixing them. The problem is caused by cold solder joints. The first one I ordered had cold solder joints on the relay of L3 so it could not bypass L3 to achieve low swr. Another issue is the pcb is too wide for the case so it’s extremely hard to attempt to fix. A few weeks ago I almost fixed all the issues to make it work perfectly, then ESD destroyed the MOSFET of relay for L7 so it became useless. I then ordered the second one. Today the second one arrived. Unfortunately it had similar issues. Swr is 5+ with 50ohm dummy load. The seller told me he tested before shipping so I think it’s cold solder joints again. I think the seller/builder doesn’t know how to do proper soldering. It’s a such a pity as the seller seems to be sourcing high quality components for building it.?

Hi, All

Hi David, yes I know the test firmware and it’s very helpful for checking relays. However can we have a special state to bypass all the inductors or capacitors? My understanding is with the current test firmware, if we switch between inductor and capacitor testings, there is always one inductor or capacitor activated and that interferes with VNA measurements on individual component. I’m thinking perhaps adding L0 and C0 in the loop to indicate bypassing all the inductors/capacitors. Thanks again for your great work! 73 de kn6pzo

Hi.?
OK, I will implement zero position for L and C.
That is not a big problem.
Also I can do a manual tuning L and C with additional buttons + and - connected to Ext port .

开云体育

Hi David,

Hi David

That would be brilliant


73,

Jon G4TSN

David
What ports do you plan to use for the manual tuning?

There are currently 4 spare port pins on the PIC16F18877.

Glenn

Glenn .
External control port. 3.5 mm audio jack.

Thanks David

I had thought you might be adding the fine facility to the standard ATU-10 operation, hence my query.

Glenn

Hi David.
I have ATU-10 with some bad lectures.
Have you schematic how you connect the ext port ??
Thn?ks
Josep

开云体育

Josep

The 3.5mm 'stereo' socket is designed to connect to an ICOM IC-705.

It's a 1 to 1 connection, ie tip to tip, sleeve to sleeve and ground to ground.

So, just make up a cable at length you need.? You can probably even buy such a cable. ? I made mine using some twin shielded cable usually used for audio type connections.

Glenn

vk3pe

Curious, what exactly is the Ext port on the ATU-10 do. The github README does not describe it and on VK3PE schematic i can see the connections to RD1 and RD2 but that does not tell me anything.?
Any information much appreciated

PS I also got a bum Chinese clone, but the seller is very helpful and has apologized and is sending me a replacement. So don't go around bad mouthing all Chinese sellers, there are plenty of good sellers.

--
73 de k1jbd
bammi

Hi. That is a simple Icom tuner interface, you can find a lot of info in internet.

I just received my ATU-10 close from AliExpress and have the same issue. The tuner completes a tuning cycle but the final SWR is over 5 into a matched load. Its that the seller I purchased mine from is no longer selling it. I'll report back if/when I determine what the problem is and fix it.

73,
Scott
AK5SD

---
Cu ganduri bune,
Marius - yo6rk
73!

Hope you filed for a return and full refund.?

I suspect that all of the ATU-10's being sold on AliExpress and eBay come from the same manufacturing lot. The pictures on every ad that I've seen look exactly the same. The particular seller that?I?purchased from is no longer selling them.

I have not asked for a refund yet. I plan to inspect the circuit board this weekend and see if I can figure out what the problem is. I popped the top yesterday and it looks well built inside, so I suspect it might just be a bad solder joint. We'll see.

73,
Scott
AK5SD

Hi, Scott

David,

I did touch up all of the relay solder joints even though I could not see an obvious problem with them. I noticed that the leads of the relays do not really protrude from the bottom of the board, so it would be easy to think you have a good solder joint when you don't. However, the tuner still does not work.

The screen lights up and the tuner will go through a tuning cycle, so the main PIC appears to be working. However, I can't load any test firmware because the tuner does not show up as a drive on my computer when I plug it in. I tried it on both a Mac and a PC.

I'm not sure what you mean by oxidized nodes of relays. If a relay is bad, replacing it will be challenging because the fabricator used lots of glue on the coils, relays, and batteries.

Unless we can show that there is a difference between vendors (which I doubt), I can't recommend the Chinese clones at this time.

73,
Scott
AK5SD