I'm finally able to start work on my SW-40+ transceiver from Small Wonder Labs. I bought the kit with the enclosure inlcuded, a little over 100 bucks delivered. The kit arrived as promised though the case itself was back-ordered- I'm really glad I got the whole kit though as the construction of the case, silk screening, and paint are all superb. The printed circuit board and all the parts are in one bag, while the knobs and hardware are in another. I'm posting more photos over in the Photo Gallery.

Doing the install of the first few components of the kit. I'm following along with the Elmer 101 series designed around the SW-40+ kit. Of course, first step is to gather tools and a good iron as described here. After reading the manual supplied with the kit, the second part is the first bit of assembly on the rig itself. Assembly of the power supply is described here and there is also a discussion of the circuitry. I have a photo of the PCB with the components installed in the first step highlighted. I installed D2, D13,U2, C102, C105, and C113. As I have the enclosure kit, I also installed J2 (VFO pot) and J4 (power connector)- after I took the photo. I now have a working 8V regulated supply. Stay tuned- Tomorrow I should be building and testing the VFO circuit.

Now it's time to assemble the VFO on the SW-40+- I installed C103, R18, D1, C2, C8, C3, Q2, C4 C5, C6, R15, R16, R17, C9 C10 and L1. I wound L1 per the instructions included in the kit.

I applied power to the unit and checked the VFO output at pin 6 of U1 and pin 5 of U2 on an oscilloscope. From here we will move on to the keying circuit and transmitter mixer. Take a look at the photo gallery for more images.

From SW-40+ VFO Keying Mixer

From SW-40+ VFO Keying Mixer

Assemblying the Keying and transmitter mixer circuits. I installed C108, C109, C110, C111, R19, R20, R21, D11, U5, C28, C29, Y5 and RFC2. Be careful with the choke as it looks similar to a resistor. It is good the Small Wonder LAbs place the RF chokes is a seperate, labeled bag to warn of this.

Once I did this I keyed the circuit by grounding pin 3 of J3 while monitoring pin 8 of U5 for about 7 volts and looking for RF at pin 4. Works.