I wasn’t really happy with the result of cleaning the PC boards that I’ve built. Using flux remover always left residue on the board, and soaking in isopropyl alcohol overnight, although better, still wasn’t perfect. I did some investigating and decided to get an ultrasonic cleaner. The model I got, a Crest 1875D has a large enough tray that I can put a whole KLM-782 board in it. My friend Evan recommended Alconox products to clean the board, so I got some Detergent-8, and the combination of the two has been the bomb.

I also got a relatively inexpensive stereo microscope off of eBay, which has been a Godsend for soldering the fine pitch components especially on the memory board. Soldering with a loupe stuck in my eye wasn’t very good for my vision!

Four orders last week, a complete DSS-1, a board set, and two kits to ship out. This week, another complete DSS-1 (possibly two), and there are many others that are interested. I think I’m going to have to pull some boards from my already modified DSS-1’s….

I should start work on the new CPU board soon. I’m at the point where I’m just finessing the final design. I just found out that the Vinculum II is coming out, and am wondering if I should wait for that. The new board should run the existing code aside from the new floppy controller. For some reason they moved the control registers around in the memory map, but all that needs to change is the register definitions. Unfortunately this means maintaining two separate builds of code. The new board will also have a larger SRAM chip for future expansion.

The new ASR-10 SP3 board is completed as well. It’s all working without incident, apart from the 2N3904 transistors I had ALL being out of spec and not working right!! I’m sending one to Garth Hjelte at Rubber Chicken Software to do some beta testing.