New Bipolar Boost TX and Front End

[Mdtoday]

Picky... picky... picky! I have adjusted those as much as possible... should be clearer now. Also added 5V to pin 19 & 20 of J9 to support my intended FPGA interface ( will post that board shortly ),

Haha, yeah, Just thought while you are at it..

Your gonna hate me....C3 txt needs a shuffle... I'll shut up now



Ok on the 5v to J9 sounds like a good idea.

Will be interesting to see your FPGA when you get to it.

Thanks again for sharing.

Cheers

Mdtoday

[KingJL]

Artix-7 Interface Board

I plan to use the Artix-7 FPGA to genetrate the timing and post-process the pre-amp output ( https://store.digilentinc.com/cmod-a...7-fpga-module/ ). I have developed an interface board that will piggy back off of J9 and will accept the Artix-7 board. I already have the Arty S7 development board that I have been using to develop the logic modules and interface them to the microblaze embedded upc core. The Kicad files for the interface board:

[KingJL]

... The only other very minor thing is top overlay, some resistor markings (R32,R33 etc) overrunning transformer solder pads and C3 moved up.

Picky... picky... picky! I have adjusted those as much as possible... should be clearer now. Also added 5V to pin 19 & 20 of J9 to support my intended FPGA interface ( will post that board shortly ),

[Mdtoday]

I have (I think) changed all of the 0.127mm tracks to 0.254. It took a bit of rerouting (especially around J9 ). Here are the updated files:

Nice work, yeah, that looks good.

The only other very minor thing is top overlay, some resistor markings (R32,R33 etc) overrunning transformer solder pads and C3 moved up.
I have attached pic but didn't post the KICAD files not to be lazy but rather just to have one set of originals.




cheers

Mdtoday

[KingJL]

Zener and driver pn?s seem to be EOL. Likely replacements but not sure for form factor.

Not sure which drivers you are referencing. If is the MOSFET drivers, I already have them. They are also available on ebay.

[bklein]

Zener and driver pn’s seem to be EOL. Likely replacements but not sure for form factor.

[KingJL]

... the only comment I would make is the track width on some nets is a bit narrow for my liking (TX_A) for instance but still looks OK as is.
The only reason I mention it is that during protototyping stages, the finer tracks attached to say S08 footprint pads tend break a little more often than .25mm> tracks with parts being soldered/desoldered and the low weight copper cladding combination...

I have (I think) changed all of the 0.127mm tracks to 0.254. It took a bit of rerouting (especially around J9 ). Here are the updated files:

[Mdtoday]

I was considering getting some boards made also. With JLCPCB, I can get 5ea 4 layer 10cmX5cm for <$25 US, 10ea 10cmx5cm <$30. I need to recheck everything first.

That's a reasonable price. PCBway is about the same.

I had a look over your PCB design and it looks fine, the only comment I would make is the track width on some nets is a bit narrow for my liking (TX_A) for instance but still looks OK as is.
The only reason I mention it is that during protototyping stages, the finer tracks attached to say S08 footprint pads tend break a little more often than .25mm> tracks with parts being soldered/desoldered and the low weight copper cladding combination.

Anyways, I'll wait a couple days , have another look over it and then order some boards if it still looks ok...


cheers

Mdtoday

[KingJL]

I was considering getting some boards made also. With JLCPCB, I can get 5ea 4 layer 10cmX5cm for <$25 US, 10ea 10cmx5cm <$30. I need to recheck everything first.

[Mdtoday]

Looking good and nice work KingJL, thanks for sharing.
I'll have a good look over it and comment if I have questions or spot something.
If it all looks Ok, I might get some boards done through PCBway as I'd be interested in trying the design out

Again thanks for sharing

cheers

Mdtoday

[KingJL]

Updated Design Files

I had to slightly change the two of the footprints for C21 & C22 (they are ceramic SMD 200V which did not come in a 1206 package) PCB layout and change C13 & C14 to non-polarized capacitors (although the footprints did not change. This resulted in an update to the schematic, the board, the Gerber files, and the BOM. They all have been updated and are included below:

[KingJL]

Bill of Materials

Here is the BOM generated by Kicad:
TX-BOM.zip

[KingJL]

Updated my Kicad schematic... now to redo the board layout.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46189[/ATTACH]

Board layout done. The layout is on a 4 layer board 5cm x 10cm. Schematic and Board were created with Kicad 5.1.2.
3D views:
top

bottom

top perspective

bottom perspective



Kicad files and gerbers:
Kicad_TX.zip
TX-Gerbers.zip

updated schematic pdf
Kicad schematic.pdf

[Mdtoday]

Updated my Kicad schematic... now to redo the board layout.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46189[/ATTACH]

Looking good, thanks for sharing

cheers

Mdtoday

[Altra]

Great work JL King, looks like you have some original ideas in the design. Thanks to your Vallon report, I have a working proto of a modified version of the VHCS3 Tx. I don't want to step on your thread so I won't post it here.

Thanks again for sharing your work.