Monday, March 11, 2013

Lab 4 layouts

The students have done a great job on the layouts for a wide variety of circuits from the Application Notes of Jim Williams. Here's a few of the projects:

Tachless motor speed controller (App Note 11, page 8)




Stabilized sine-wave generator (App Note 98, page 3)



Low-distortion sine-wave oscillator (App Note 43, page 33)



High-speed avalanche pulse generator (App Note 47, page 93)



Fast response V/F converter (App Note 14, page 4)



The Zoo Circuit, a micropower V/F converter (App Note 23, page 11)


The boards are on order, the parts are on order, and we're all looking forward to assembling the projects!

1 comment:

  1. The boards look very nice!

    When I do a prototype board, I like to keep the layout very loose unless the circuit requirements and parasitics dictate otherwise. This helps me probe and lessens the chance that my fumblefingers will blow up parts by shorting unfortunately-close nodes. I also like to put in lots of ground vias to help with probing. Some of these boards have ground planes, which would seem to be at least as good or even better, but you can stick a short home-made scope ground wire into a ground via and it won't move around to short to other parts (as it can if just making contact somewhere on the ground plane. I note appreciation for thermal relief pads on some of the grounded vias! Good!

    I know the assignment was to reproduce the schematic exactly, but sometimes it's helpful to have extra pads wired to nodes for experimental purposes or actual extra components designed into the circuit for tweaking purposes (series, parallel) and loaded as shorts or opens, respectively.

    On prototypes you can also include notes in copper or silkscreen to help you remember stuff if you come back to the circuit after a long while. I like the way some students "signed" them with their names and "Olin College". This can be extended to any useful information you think you might like to have in a year or two!

    Good work, ladies and gentlemen!

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