At least for the time being with China relative to electronics. Its in there culture and business model to cut corners on quality. So I wouldn't worry about it. Just keep picking the best breed of components relative to quality and value. And things will be fine.
please just keep those of us without high level skills in mind when setting up kits/packages--if possible.
I can re-work through hole stuff, and have heavily modded several YJ blue black boards, but I have still not upgraded my skills to handle smd.
So, would love a board with the tiny stuff soldered, but ability to install/re-work the through hole stuff.
Or, just completed board.
This looks like the answer to my needs.
look forward to production and ordering a few.
I can re-work through hole stuff, and have heavily modded several YJ blue black boards, but I have still not upgraded my skills to handle smd.
So, would love a board with the tiny stuff soldered, but ability to install/re-work the through hole stuff.
Or, just completed board.
This looks like the answer to my needs.
look forward to production and ordering a few.
that's 1/2 of why this is a "proper PCB" > all SMD & chip caps using known quality MLC parts. I reckon the other half is the knowledge / skills to be able to do it on a 2 layer board.
Without doubt duable In 2 layer. There is not much on 3. And 4. Layer, it is part of a more complex board.
4 layers are incredibly easy to lay out for something like this.
I've even managed some simple BGA layouts on dual layers. If you have the time then you'd be surprised what can be done on dual layers. Especially now that even the cheapest board fabs (itead etc) will do 6 mil traces with 6 mil spacing, 12 mil vias etc...
No need too.. I Work In both 2.4.6 and 8 layers. As told the layout is part og a bigger more complex board. There is no need to do This layout In 4 layers if it only contains the tpa311x..
Only way to upgrade your SMT skills is to try. Hardest thing to solder on this board is by far the TPA3118 chip itself, the rest of the card isn't too bad. The next most annoying thing is the SOD323 diodes (which I may change to an easier to solder package), 0603 surface mount and the pins on the SOICs. Doing 0805/1206 SMT is pretty easy.
I can sell the card in various stages of completion:
- Bare PCB
- TPA3116 only, untested
- TPA3116 + minimum SMT required to allow in-circuit test (bootstrap caps, GVDD cap, minimum decoupling on TPA)
- Full SMT, tested
- Fully built card.
Though I'll be banging these all out by hand so if someone wants the inductors left off or whatever, that's certainly doable.
There's no need to do this board in 4 layers. The ground plane is hardly cut up, power routing is direct, there's no complicated circuitry on here which would create any kind of spaghetti routing...
I s'pose you could use heavy PVCC/ground planes with high-K dielectric between the two if you want to decouple the card up into the GHz, but how much of a difference is that seriously going to make...
I s'pose you could use heavy PVCC/ground planes with high-K dielectric between the two if you want to decouple the card up into the GHz, but how much of a difference is that seriously going to make...
FWIW, I ordered the DUG mono boards with zero smd soldering experience. Doug did solder the tpa chip, but the rest was all me. My work doesn't look particularly pretty, but it works just fine. I did this with a basic soldering iron and precision tweezers to hold the smd components. I will say, though, that it looks to me like Doug made the solder pads fairly generous in size - it seems most other boards I've looked at, with same size components, have smaller pads (presumably intended to be soldered by machine or someone with magnifying glasses and more precise equipment).
Just sayin, don't be afraid to try smd. Heck, with generous pads like the DUG board, I actually prefer it now because cleaning solder out of through holes is a pain.
Just sayin, don't be afraid to try smd. Heck, with generous pads like the DUG board, I actually prefer it now because cleaning solder out of through holes is a pain.
Steveeboy, the bootstrap caps should/must be smd so they can get close enough to the chip! Othewise all you'll hear is white noise! I strongly recommend getting a cheap 10usd temperature controlled soldering iron from ebay! All my friends have bought one and they work excellent and last forever🙂 Smd soldering is made easy with that fine tip on those🙂
Btw, I just recently put a 22uF ceramic smd cap on the voltage pins of the tpa3116 chip in a hope to reduce hiss. Only large caps on this board stock. I didn't help one bit! From this I do not think all the smd psu filtering caps on this board will actually help all that much on hiss? I would suggest using that space for a the larger electrolytic psu caps instead. I guess I'm in happyrabits camp when it comes to placing the psu caps.
Have anyone seen some research of what is the reason of hiss? Would the higher (1.2MHz) switching frequency avoid the hiss? I've been toying with these cards for weeks and it takes a lot of effort to lower the noise floor on all stock cards available.
Happyrabit are you going to run your board at 1.2MHz? I really like that layout! Have you made the grounding trace wider on purpose? I think I read somewhere that the ground trace should be a bit wider than the trace on top to reduce RF interference. Is this whats going on there?
Btw, I just recently put a 22uF ceramic smd cap on the voltage pins of the tpa3116 chip in a hope to reduce hiss. Only large caps on this board stock. I didn't help one bit! From this I do not think all the smd psu filtering caps on this board will actually help all that much on hiss? I would suggest using that space for a the larger electrolytic psu caps instead. I guess I'm in happyrabits camp when it comes to placing the psu caps.
Have anyone seen some research of what is the reason of hiss? Would the higher (1.2MHz) switching frequency avoid the hiss? I've been toying with these cards for weeks and it takes a lot of effort to lower the noise floor on all stock cards available.
Happyrabit are you going to run your board at 1.2MHz? I really like that layout! Have you made the grounding trace wider on purpose? I think I read somewhere that the ground trace should be a bit wider than the trace on top to reduce RF interference. Is this whats going on there?
Depends on how "failed". Traces blown off the PCB is gonna be a harder repair than a bad solder joint or two 🙂
Thank you very much for giving considerations to those that are less skillful (like me). Looking forward to your testing of the completed board.
Regards,
Gmarsh, do you mean the audio input caps? All the boards have this hiss at one level or another. Just on this layout its higher than usual and irritating since I'm using the card for nearfield listening. I have changed the audio input caps and put the newer ones even closer to the chip but it didn't help.. I just figured it had something to do with the output layering being bad; TPA3116 50W x 2 Dual Channel Class D Digital Audio Amplifier Board 100W 8V 25V | eBay
Gmarsh,
I prefer this
Quote - TPA3116 + minimum SMT required to allow in-circuit test (bootstrap caps, GVDD cap, minimum decoupling on TPA)
thanks for your effort
I prefer this
Quote - TPA3116 + minimum SMT required to allow in-circuit test (bootstrap caps, GVDD cap, minimum decoupling on TPA)
thanks for your effort
Hello Impuls60
can you post a link for this
"cheap 10usd temperature controlled soldering iron from ebay"
thanks
can you post a link for this
"cheap 10usd temperature controlled soldering iron from ebay"
thanks
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This is where the cinemags shine, it signal grounds and earth grounds depending on how you config it even with an unbalanced connection. I can crank up the volume, put the song on pause, and its dead silent with my ear pressed to the throat on my AMT tweeter. That right there in an accomplishment.
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