Building Ronja Twister airwire

We are going to build airwire twister. The following photos show airwire twister prototype, so that the placement of the components is not optimal

There are two possibilities how to make the box. First one is using a calibrated printer, printing out a template and gluing the template on a tin. The second one is measuring everything by hand.

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / DXF (qcad)

Option 1: Box body template

Print out this template and glue on a piece of tin.

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / DXF (qcad)

Option 1: Box lid template

Print out this template and glue on a piece of tin.

Option 1: Cutting out

Cut out the outline of the templates. Use a pair of tin cutters. (Note: the photos are of obsolete template used on prototyping)

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / DXF (qcad)

Option 1: Drilling and bending

Drill out and bend the box body and lid. Omit the 4 holes marked "A". Process according to the print on the template, the plan and photos:

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / DXF (qcad)

Option 2: making the box with manual measurements

Make the box according to the plan. Use hard stylus or thin nonporous surface marker for drawing lines. Use square for maintaining perpendicularity and centre punch for making centres of holes. Omit the 4 holes marked "A"

Soldering corners

Solder corners up using soldering iron, solder and rosin flux. If the box is made of copper, the soldering iron must be big and powerful or use two soldering irons (even they may not suffice) or put the box on cooking stove, fire the cooking stove at appropriate power and perform the soldering on the stove.

Lid holes

Make holes on the box body by copying them from the lid using a drill. Use 4.3mm drill bit. Use the bolts and maybe nuts to secure the lid on already drilled holes during the operation. Mark the lid so that you can put it back always the same way. Due to drilling imperfections it may be difficult to close up the lid in some other from the total 4 possible positions

Wire through 3mm hole soldering

Solder the wire into the 3mm hole. If the box is made of copper tin, it is possible it will be impossible to solder with your soldering iron. Either use a stronger soldering iron or two irons at once. If this is not sufficient, place the box on a cooking stove and let the stove heat the box and apply soldering iron on the hot box.

Grommets

Install one 6mm and three 4mm grommets. (Note: The box on the picture is missing the hole for power connector.)

Switches

Install switches. They have usually a lock against turning, use a tiny file or a small drill to acoomodate the lock.

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / SVG (Inkscape)

Making L stubs

Make 4 L-Stubs:

3 of them according to the picture
1 of them according to the picture but without the insulation

Installing L Stubs

Install 3 insulated wire stubs into the grommets and 1 uninsulated into the 3mm hole next to the grommets to discriminate individual terminals of the terminal block. The sidemost terminals are unused and prevent the nut from breaking apart under mechanical stress from the cable.

Mounting terminal block

Mount the terminal block. Wrench is 5.5mm. Use M3x15 bolts and M3 washers and M3 nuts and tighten.

Color bands for CONN53

Apply color bands with shown colors made from duct tape. Remember this connector is called CONN53.

LEDs

Insert LEDs into the box in the same order as in the picture (from left: green, yellow, red). Glue them down using thermal glue pistol.

STP cable: CONN52

Cut 1m of the STP cable. Crimp a RJ-45 modular jack with jacket at the end (recommended wiring: T568B). Strip 50mm of outer insulation from the other (without jack) end of the UTP cable. Strip 5mm from each individual wire. Put the cable through it's grommet-equipped hole (the 6mm grommet in a group of four holes of varying sizes). Adjust the length of unstripped cable between hole and stripped section to 20mm. Fix up the cable in the hole using thermal glue. Seal from both sides, using large amount of the glue.

Remember this connector is called CONN52. Note: the cable on the picture is not stranded, which is wrong.

We are going to solder an airwire construction. All IC's will be glued down on their back. The interconnections will be soldered using a hard wire, solder and rosin flux. A transformer soldering iron (the one with the loop) or regulated-temperature iron is used for this.

		PostScript	PostScript + Gzip	PDF
Color	Dark	twister_01.ps	twister_01.ps.gz	twister_01.pdf
	Light	twister_00.ps	twister_00.ps.gz	twister_00.pdf
	Small	twister_02.ps	twister_02.ps.gz	twister_02.pdf
B/W	Dark	twister_11.ps	twister_11.ps.gz	twister_11.pdf
	Light	twister_10.ps	twister_10.ps.gz	twister_10.pdf
	Small	twister_12.ps	twister_12.ps.gz	twister_12.pdf

twister.sch (gschem)

Component lists

Seznamy součástek

Preparing chips

Cut off the tips of certain IC as shown in lower left corner of the schematic

Write on each chip's bottom side it's designation again (use paper stickers). Glue chips down on their backs according to the placement plan. Solder some of them on top of each other like in a stack (the uncut pins are soldered together, the ones with cut tips are left alone):

Number of chips in stack	Chips in stack (from bottom to top)
5	U51, U53, U64, U64, U65 (all 74HC164)
2	U66 (74HC133), U60(74HC4040)
2	U67 (74HC133), U61(74HC4040)

Mounting regulator

Mount U68 using one short M3 bolt, one M3 toothed spring washer and one M3 nut onto it's hole from the inner side, it's pins pointing towards the four big holes (connectors & switches).

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / SVG (Inkscape)

Placing components

Place components according to the plan. Before placing each integrated circuit, carve the part number (for example 74HCT132) on the bottom side using sharp metal stylus or stick a sticker and write it on. Write a refdes (e. g. U51) beside the IC on the tin using fine-tip permanent waterproof marker.

		PostScript	PostScript + Gzip	PDF
Color	Dark	twister_01.ps	twister_01.ps.gz	twister_01.pdf
	Light	twister_00.ps	twister_00.ps.gz	twister_00.pdf
	Small	twister_02.ps	twister_02.ps.gz	twister_02.pdf
B/W	Dark	twister_11.ps	twister_11.ps.gz	twister_11.pdf
	Light	twister_10.ps	twister_10.ps.gz	twister_10.pdf
	Small	twister_12.ps	twister_12.ps.gz	twister_12.pdf

twister.sch (gschem)

Component lists

Seznamy součástek

Soldering

Solder in all the parts according to the schematic in this order:

All IC's
IC blocking capacitors: C51, 52, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 71, 72, 79, 80, 81, 82, 75, 76, 87, 88, 97, 98, 102, 103, 89, 90, 99, 100, 104, 105, 91, 92, 95, 96, 107, 108
Other blocking capacitors: C110, 112, 58, 59, 55, 56, 53, 54, 111
Wire and passive component interconnections within one IC case
Inter-case connections

Correctness check

Take the Twister and inspect it completely.

Left-out components
Left-out wires
Wires leading somewhere else
Correct values of passive components
Correct IC types
Correct orientation of IC's
Correct orientation of diodes.
Correct orientation of polarized capacitors
Correct orientation of connector keys

Postscript / PDF / EPS / BIG png / SVG (Inkscape)

Labels

Print out the Twister label. Stick the label on the outer side of the lid and fill in.

Print out the small schematic (see the Schematic section above) and glue on the inner side of the lid. Cross over any component that is replaced by an equivalent and inscribe the true equivalent type.

Building Ronja Twister AW

Building Ronja Twister airwire

Option 1: Box body template

Option 1: Box lid template

Option 1: Cutting out

Option 1: Drilling and bending

Option 2: making the box with manual measurements

Soldering corners

Lid holes

Wire through 3mm hole soldering

Grommets

Switches

Making L stubs

Installing L Stubs

Mounting terminal block

Color bands for CONN53

LEDs

STP cable: CONN52

Preparing chips

Mounting regulator

Placing components

Soldering

Correctness check

Labels