MAIANA Blue

[negrusti]

Would it be possible to buy the board or a kit from you?

[sebba]

Hello,
Yes, it is.
All my boards are populated now and I'm at the final stage with the base kit (base-kit PCB/mounting tube/antenna)
The complete base-kits should be ready within 1-2 weeks from now.

also, I just sent one base-kit board in Spain for final testing and I suggest waiting for these test's results first

[Jon on Wildflowers]

Thank you for your efforts, looking forward to the results!

[Jon on Wildflowers]

First antenna on test with NanoVNA



I recalculated the antenna for 161.5MHz, it is around 1cm longer than original
The original antenna seems to be tuned for 165MHz, wondering why....

And after some manual tunning (upper radiator shorted by 1mm):



It is time for outdoor and real life tests 

Just thinking out loud........am I correct in assuming that this antenna is a dipole design(style)? There are alternatives in the J-pole design....for example  https://edsantennas.weebly.com/ a side by side would be interesting......no?

[sebba]

thanks for your input
for now, I'll stick around the original design, as much as possible
as far as I know the antenna is a "flower pot antenna"
more details here:
https://vk2zoi.com/articles/half-wave-flower-pot/
https://nomonsuhendar.blogspot.com/2020/...lator.html

[Dr_Lyn]

I have had huge problems with the old maiana being unstable, stopping sending data after 1-10 hours of being powered up, then having to wait up to 10 hours powered off before it worked again. Are theese issues fixed with the maiana blue? (the old boards had rev. 11.9.1)

best regards
Henry

[sebba]

Hi Henry,

Maiana Blue is based (for now) on 11.9.1 hw version.
MB 11.9.2 have minor fixes and improvements
In the last year (almost) I tested a lot of maianas and I didn't had that issue so I cannot give you a real advice

what can I say: the 11.9.1 version have a small bug, a hardware one, which can make maiana stop
are you able to use a multimeter and do some smd soldering?
if yes, I can give you some hints which is very possible to fix this
but please understand, you'll do it on your own risk

[Dr_Lyn]

I am fine with a multimeter and can find someone to do the smd soldering for me. I would really appreciate any hints as I have two boards that are not working.

best regards
Henry Tornow

[sebba]

ok, I'll prepare a small tutorial asap
please remember, this will fix a hardware bug. see here: https://github.com/peterantypas/maiana/issues/154
this will fix your board only if this is the problem

I encountered this issue with my first boards but not randomly.

[sebba]

so, let's try to make this "tutorial".
the (possible) problem is made by the mosfet which power the gps module.
it can block the STM32

you can carefully remove that mosfet. maybe the board will not look exactly like the pictured one but the mosfet is in the same position, near the gps module
   

and bypass it with a very short wire
   

after that the gps data will continuously flow into the serial terminal, if will not be stopped by "cli mode" or "gps off" commands but the stm32 will not be blocked by the mosfet.
having gps data continuously flowing will affect only your visual comfort when you want to enter the cli mode for configure maiana.

if this will fix your board (will not stop after 1 day or so) buy another mosfet (like AO3409) for replacing the original AO3401
of course, you can leave it like this, with the bypassing wire instead of mosfet. will work.

if maiana will still have this issue, place the old mosfet back and we will do further investigations

good luck