WinKey USB Assembly and Operation Guide

Version 1.H 8/12/2010

This document describes the assembly, checkout, and hook up of the K1EL Winkey USB(WKUSB) Keyer Kit with a version D PCB. This design can be powered off a PC’s USB port orinternal batteries. When connected to a PC, there is no drain on the batteries. When running on
battery power, it will go into power saving sleep mode when not in use. Because of this, a power
on/off switch is not required. Two key output ports are provided which allow one of two rigs to be
keyed from one keyer. The KEY/PTT outputs are optically isolated. A speed pot and four
pushbuttons are also included.

WinKey PCB Bill of Materials
QTY
2
6
3
1
4
4
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Ref Designator
C4, C5
C1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9
C10, 11, 12
C8
D1, 2, 3, 4
S1, S2, S3, S4
Plastic Push Cap
Plastic Push Cap
J1
J2
J3
L1
Q1
R6

4

R7, 8, 13, 16

4
5
3
1
1
1

R9, 10, 11, 15
R1, 2, 3, 4, 5
R12, 14, 18
R17
SP1
U2

2

U1, U3

1
2
1
1
1
1
2
1
4
4
1
1

U4 (pre-mounted)

RX1
KX1
WK-USB PCB
WK_USB Enclosure
Misc
ScrewsRubber Feet
Piece
Cable

Value
.01uF 10V (103).001uF 500V (102).1uF (104).0047uF
1N4148SPST

1/8 phone jack
4 way RCA JackUSB connector
Inductor
2N2222A100Ω
2.4KΩ (optocoupler)
620Ω (AQW relay)
470Ω (Clare relay)
4.7KΩ
2.2KΩ
470Ω
10KΩ
Piezo
PIC16F688
Toshiba TLP627 or
NAIS AQW210EH or
Clare LAA125
FT232RL
8 pin
14 pin
10K
Knob
Rev D
3xAAA
4-40 by ¼ inch
Push in style
Velcro Tape
USB A to B cable

Description
Capacitor
Capacitor
Capacitor
Capacitor
Silicon Diode
Pushbutton Switch
Pushbutton Cap
Pushbutton Cap
Connector
Connector
Connector
Ferrite Bead
Transistor
Resistor

Package
Ceramic Disc
Ceramic Disc
Ceramic Orange
Mylar 10%
Glass DO35
PC mount
Black Square
Red Square
Paddle Input
Key/PTT Out
USB_B
Axial lead
TO92
1/4 W 5%

Resistor

1/4 W 5%

Resistor
Resistor
Resistor
Resistor
Speaker
PIC Micro
Optocoupler
Solid state relay
Solid state relay
USB Interface
Sockets
SocketPotentiometer
Speed pot knob
PC Board
Aluminum Box
Battery holder

1/8 W 5%
1/8 W 5%
1/8 W 5%
1/4 W 5%
Plastic Can
14 pin DIP

Chk

8 pin DIP
28 pin SSOP
8 pin DIP
14 pin DIP

Adhesive

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Kit Assembly
1) Verify and check off all components against the bill of materials listed above. A resistor
color code chart is provided below. If there are any shortages notify K1EL by email assoon as possible and we will send the missing parts to you. Note that the surface mount
IC, U4, is pre-mounted on the board.
2) The WKUSB PCB has a solder mask but it is still easy to inadvertently bridge two pads
together. Please solder carefully and use the checkplots on page 12 to resolve any
connections in question. 95% of all kits returned for repair have had soldering errors.
3) Carefully check the PC board for any obvious defects.
4) Follow the silkscreen and carefully install all 18 resistors, then solder, and trim leads.
Note that the value of R7, R8, R13, and R16 depends on the type of solid state relay or
optocoupler provided with your kit, this is specified in the bill of materials.
5) Install and solder two 8 pin sockets and one 14 pin socket, make sure the alignment
marking matches the silkscreen. Note that the 8 pin sockets are installed in reverse fromthe 14 pin socket. This will become important when you install the ICs.
6) Install the paddle connector J1, make sure it’s flush and that the front of the connector islined up with the front edge of the PC board. Hold it in place while you solder.
7) Install and solder the six .001uF (102) ceramic disc caps, C2 will be a tight fit against J1
so it may have to tilt away from J1 slightly. Trim leads.
8) Install and solder the three small orange .1uF ceramic caps: C10, C11, C12.
9) Install the four 1N4148 diodes, check that the band on the diode matches the silkscreen.
10) Install and solder the leaded ferrite bead L1.
11) Install transistor Q1 making sure that the flat side of the component body lines up with thesilkscreen. Solder and trim leads.

Fig 1 – Transistor Orientation
12) Install the USB connector J3. Bend over the holding tabs and make sure it is flush to theboard before soldering. It helps to tack solder one of the tabs first to hold it in place. The
signal pins on this connector are very easy to bridge together if you use too much solder.
13) Install and solder the two .01uF (103) ceramic disc caps C4 and C5. Trim leads.
14) Install and solder piezo speaker S1, observe polarity and align speaker + to silkscreen +Be sure to remove adhesive film covering the top of the speaker.
15) Install the .0047uF mylar cap C8, This may be a yellow “box” or dipped package. Solder
and trim leads.
16) Now install the four-way phono connector block, make sure the connector is flush against
the PC board before soldering in place. Trim the leads after soldering.
Resistor Color Code Chart
100Ω
470Ω
620Ω
2.2K Ω
4.7K Ω
10K Ω

Brown Black Brown
Yellow Violet Brown
Blue Red Brown
Red Red Red
Yellow Violet Red
Brown Black Orange

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Install message pushbuttons on back of PCB !
17) Now install the pushbutton switches on the !!!BACK!!! side of the PC board as illustrated
in the above picture. Make sure the switches are flush to the board before soldering. After
soldering, attach the four square push-button caps. The red one goes on S1 which is theleftmost switch whn you hold the board upside down with the phono jacks away from you.
Press firmly until they snap in place, only a small amount of force is required.
18) You can now wire the speed pot to the PC board, the center lug of the pot goes to PC
board pad marked W. Cut two 7 inch lengths of wire. Looking at the pot from the back,the lug counterclockwise from the center goes to pad G while the center goes to W. If you
don’t plan on using the speed pot short PCB pads W and G with a scrap resistor lead.
G

Speed Pot
Connection

W

W

10 K
Linear
Taper

Back

G

Figure 2 – Speed pot Connection19) Don’t install any ICs yet, we will do this as part of the kit bring up.
20) If you are using the battery option, wire the battery holder to the PC board. Be sure toconnect the red wire to the square (+) pad of J4. The black wire goes to the round pad.
Some battery holders have a switch, makes sure it is set to the on position.
21) That completes the circuit board assembly. Now proceed to bring up and final assembly.

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Completed WKUSB Rev D PCB

Kit Checkout
Take a look at the Winkey USB PCB schematic on pages 9, 10, & 11 to familiarize yourself withthe circuitry on the PCB. It is a fairly simple design. The WK PIC requires a positive power supply
which is sourced either from a 4.5V battery pack or USB. Two diodes take care of selecting theright supply. Never use a battery supply greater than 5V. To insure that the power down modecurrent is as small as possible a voltage regulator is not utilized. The WK2 PIC is USB compliant
in that it will go into a power down mode when the USB port goes into standby. The WK2 PIC
monitors USB status by looking at the USB interface IC’s SLEEP output pin.
The WKUSB keyer has two modes, host mode and standalone mode. In host mode, WKUSB isconnected to a PC which has issued an open command from a running application. If WKUSB isconnected to a host but the host has not issued an open command, WKUSB will stay instandalone mode. In standalone mode WKUSB will operate as a full featured keyer with message
pushbuttons and a Morse command interface. In host mode WKUSB will not respond to Morsecommands, instead it is under control of the PC. This is covered more completely in the WKUSB
manual.
Getting back to WKUSB bring up, the first thing to do is test the USB interface. Before doing thisyou must install the USB driver on your PC. Read the Quick Start guide before plugging WKUSB
into your PC. This document will describe how to install the driver. Make sure you do as
instructed or the driver may not install correctly and WKUSB might not be detected properly. As
part of the procedure you will eventually attach WKUSB to the PC USB port with the supplied
USB cable. This will apply power to the USB interface IC, the WK IC does not have to be installedat this time. Once the driver is installed and WKUSB is attached, the PC will assign it a com port.
You will need to know what that port number is when you get to the point of configuring
applications to run with WKUSB. Here are the steps to follow to get the assigned com port:

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Left Click on START -> right click on My Computer then select Properties this brings up the
System Properties dialog box. Select Hardware then select Device Manager. Look for Ports(COM & LPT) and click on the + to the left of it. This will show all the communications ports
installed. One of them will be USB COM. Write down the port number By clicking on that
selection and clicking on Advanced you can change to port to a different value.
This is outlined with more detail in the WKUSB Quick Start Guide found on the CDROM.
If you ran into problems with the host not being able to recognize the WKUSB device, carefullyrecheck all components in the USB interface to make they were installed correctly. Double checkthat your solder connections are all there and that they look good. With WKUSB attached to the
USB port, you should see +5V on the leads of the ferrite bead L1.
Once you have been able to get the PC to recognize WKUSB as a valid USB device, disconnect
WKUSB from the PC and we will now test the keyer portion of the design. First install the 14 pin
DIP U2 and then install the two 8 pin DIPs U1 and U3. For both ICs observe pin 1 as shown:
1

8GroundTip = Dit

Ring = Dah
Fig 3 - IC Orientation

Fig 4 - Paddle Connector Pinout

Connect a paddle to J1, the expected paddle connections are shown above. If you have dit and dah
reversed this is not a problem since the paddles can be swapped by software control. Install 3 AAA
cells in the battery holder and WKUSB will wake up and send an R in sidetone. Attach a paddle set
and you should hear dits and dahs on the sidetone speaker when you close the paddle contacts.
Turning the speed pot will change the WPM rate. At this point the keyer is in standalone mode, press
and hold the command button until WKUSB will responds with an ‘R’. You can then enter a commandon the paddles. An easy command to test is the paddle swap command X. All of the commands arecovered in detail in the standalone keyer section of the Winkeyer2 datasheet.
WKUSB does not send an R when powered up:
Check the orientation of the WK IC to make sure it’s not in backwards. Then measure the voltage
between pin 1 and 14 on the WK IC. You should see about 4.0 volts or one diode drop less than thebattery voltage. It’s possible that the WK2 IC is functioning but the sidetone speaker circuit is at fault,
look at driver transistor Q1 and associated circuitry.
WKUSB is not responding to paddle input or is sending out a continuous series of dits or dahs:
Check the paddle cabling, J1, and associated input circuit for shorts or opens.
WKUSB periodically sends out an R followed by a ? or an MT:
You probably have a problem with the 2.2K pushbutton network (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R9).
WKUSB is completely unresponsive or just sends a single dit on power up:
This can be caused by a missing or miswired speed pot.

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Here are instructions on installing the WK_USB assembly into the enclosure.
1) Using spray cleaner, clean the inside surfaces of the top and base enclosure halves toremove any dirt, grease, or metal filings.
2) With an Xacto knife, carefully scrape the paint from the inside edge of the USB connector
opening. This will insure a good USB ground shield connection between the USB connector
and the enclosure. Use care so to avoid accidentally scratching the back panel surface.

3) Attach speed pot to the single hole on the front of the enclosure.
4) A Velcro adhesive pad is attached to the bottom of the battery pack. Peel back the plastic film
to expose the adhesive and carefully locate the holder as shown below. The adhesive is very
difficult to remove so make sure you install the battery pack correctly with the wires oriented
as shown. The battery pack needs to almost touch the speed pot.

Wires
Battery pack
Back of enclosure

Figure 12 – Installation of battery pack

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CMD

Back of enclosure

Figure 13 – Command button location

5) Install the PC board in the top half of the enclosure using four 4-40 screws. Remember the
pushbuttons protrude through the top of the case. It will only fit properly one way.
6) Assemble the two halves of the enclosure by tilting the top and inserting the connectors into
their respective holes in the back panel of the bottom half.
7) It may be a tight fit and you may need to press firmly to make sure the paddle connector
protrudes through the back panel. Also you may need to slightly adjust the position of thequad RCA jacks so that they are centered in the back panel holes. Install four 4-40 screws to
hold the top cover in place.
8) This completes the assembly.
Now proceed to application checkout, at this point you will reconnect WKUSB to your PC’s USB portso hopefully you have already installed the USB driver as described on page 4. The best application
to use to check out the WKUSB kit is the K1EL WKtest Application. Although the interface is daunting
at first look, there are only a few controls that need to be played with. A version is on the CD but here
is a link to the application.
http://www.k1el.com/wktest_setup.exe
The quick start guide gives a step by step procedure to follow to get WKTEST connected and runningwith WKUSB. If you run into problems here are some debugging steps you can follow:
1) If the PC does not recognize WKUSB when plugged into the USB port: The first thing to do is
double check all of the solder connections in the USB interface. There are a minimal numberof components to look at. Verify that you see +5V on the ferrite L1 when plugged into the PC.
It’s possible, but not likely, that there is a USB controller pin connection problem. When allelse fails check the pins for shorts or bad connections with a magnifying glass.
2) If you get the PC to recognize WKUSB and assigned it a comport but WKtest is unable toconnect to WKUSB, WKtest will display one of two errors:
Comport open error: You may have not have selected the correct port in WKtest or there isanother device using that port.
Echo or No Response error: The com port opened properly but WKUSB did not respond. Thismeans there is probably a problem on the WKUSB PC board, proceed to Step 3.
3) At this point the USB interface and WKUSB standalone mode have been verified so if we
can’t get WKtest to connect, the problem must be in either the Rx/Tx serial or Sleep statusconnections between the USB IC and the WK2 IC. A good strategy at this point is to carefully
go over the circuitry between the USB controller IC and the Winkeyer IC. Look for bad or
missing solder connections, solder shorts, missing, or wrongly installed components. That is
the most common problem at this stage. If you have a scope you can trace the receive data

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path from the USB interface to WK IC pin 5. Click on WKopen while probing: a short burst ofserial data is sent every time you click on WKopen. If you see it reach the WK IC, then look
for the serial response burst from the WK IC pin 6 to the USB controller.

Precautions when connecting kit to a rig
NOTE !!! : WKUSB with solid state relays is capable of keying positive or negative voltages up to
300 volts. The maximum keying current is 100 milliamps. Before attempting to use WKUSB to key
a vacuum tube transmitter please be absolutely sure that these limits are not exceeded.
Key port one output is the lower left RCA jack as you look at the connector from the plug-in side.
The upper left is PTT one. Lower right is Key port two and upper right PTT two. You can change
output ports in the Winkeyer2 app in the output setup dialog. In standalone mode the O command
toggles the output port.
PTT 1

PTT 2

KEY 1

KEY 2

Fig 6 – Back Panel View of Output Ports

There are several RF filter points included in the WinKey circuit design. Capacitors on the key
and PTT lines shunt RF from coming back through those lines. C1 and C2 shunts any RF
arriving over the paddle leads. C8 shunts any RF arriving over the speed pot leads. These
components also reduce RF radiation from WinKey.
Even with good filtering the Winkey PCB is susceptible to problems caused by high RF potentials
in the shack. Please observe standard RF grounding precautions to reduce RF at the operation
position. This includes but is not limited to: multiple connection paths to a good earth ground,common grounding for all equipment, quarter wave stubs at particularly troublesome frequencies,and double checking all mechanical ground connections for oxidation.

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Winkey PCB Rev D Layout

Figure 8 – WinKey USB PCB Check Plot

Figure 9 – WinKey USB PCB Silkscreen

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Figure 10 - WinKey USB PCB Component Side

Figure 11 - WinKey USB PCB Solder Side

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Standalone Considerations
Standalone operation adds a level of complexity to the system that didn’t exist in WK1.
Here’s a list of things to know about standalone operation.
1) When WK_USB is powered up for the first time it loads a default set of standalone
parameters.
2) These parameters can be modified through standalone paddle commands or by hooking
WK_USB up to the Windows application WK2MGR.
3) If the user modifies parameters in standalone mode and wants to preserve them, theyneed to remember to save the settings with the standalone command P.
4) When WK_USB is connected to a PC’s USB port, the PC recognizes the USB device andregisters it but WK_USB remains in standalone mode until an application opens it. The
only serial commands WK_USB will accept while in standalone are ADMIN commands.
5) WK2MGR works by directly reading and writing the EEPROM in the WK2 IC. The
EEPROM contains all of the standalone settings and local messages. Since the
EEPROM is accessed by ADMIN commands, WK_USB can remain in a closed state.
6) When an application opens WK_USB, WK_USB leaves standalone mode and will nolonger responds to the command pushbutton making it impossible to enter paddle
commands. This is as it should be since WKUSB is now under control of the application.
7) After opening WKUSB the host application overwrites the standalone settings withsettings dictated by the host. This must be done to insure settings listed in the hostapplication’s dialog boxes are in sync with those in WKUSB.
8) You can not run WK2MGR when another application is connected to WKUSB.
9) When the host application closes WK_USB, standalone operation is restored, and thesettings last stored in EEPROM are reloaded.

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