hi
Knuckles started this thread as a result of me telling him that I was thinking of doing a SMD version of Garys LVC/HVC boards.
I have since compleated the artwork on that board and then got thrown a curve ball when I find out that Gary is going to start playing with the HVC settings, by this time i had been talking to some people outside of the forum and found that the part of Garys circuit that is most wanted is the LVC circuit. The parallel balance board can be made with a piece of stripboard if needed and you can choose how many packs you put in parallel.
I then desided to go down a difrent route for now at least and make the micro LVC or thumbnail LVC a reality, I had previously got a LVC board from Gary and so used it as the blueprint for the circuit design, if it worked for him it should work for me, once the circuit design was drawn on paper I started to draw the circuit board in the computer. after I had a working model in the computer it was time to compress it as much as I could Size was important to me for this project.
Once all the copper had been placed where it had to go I started on the top and bottom text, not needed but it adds that little extra to a PCB so I thought I should put it in.
I then got the computer to export all the files that any PCB factory would need.
Now comes the hard part I am getting the boards made in china, my contact Keywin Who supplys a lot of the infineon controllers has a PCB factory handy and we are working together to get the first batch made as soon as we just need to find out what if anything is missing from the list of files I sent.
Now we come to the good part the what it looks like.
The board will be 38mm by 25 mm
it will have a 90 degree JST connector on the input and one on the output along the 25mm side
there will be a pair of 2 way jst sm connector pigtails for the LVC trip output simmilar to how gary does his setup
there will be no parts to put together as all that needs to be added to the board is the 2 connectors and the 2 pigtails both of which I am going to get keywin to do once things are underway, he will do 5 cell and 6 cell from the start other sizes will be offered as kits the more people that want a size the more chance that cell size can be made up not in just kit form, there is pcb board under the connector housing to add strength.
as for price I cannot say yet I am still waiting to hear back from the factory as to the cost of the first run and the cost of future runs using the same templates as the templates are the bit that costs the money.
I have a few pictures of the PCB design for you to look at below
first the circuit board much like you get from Gary
View attachment 2
next the top overlay this is mainly to place the components
finaly the botom overlay for this I had to put it on the board in mirror format so it would come out correct i have reversed the image for you so you can read it
I will post an idea of the price as soon as I can.
As you will See there is a copyright on the back of the board but it is only for the SMD design work the circuit I think we can consider is open scorce.
Geoff