Speedo Healer Boards Arrive!
I went to open the door to my office at work this morning and leaning up against it was a package I was keenly anticipating. It was my order of three PCBs for my Speedo Healer from @laen at http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order.
These boards are excellent, I love the purple solder mask too.
So far it looks like all my foot prints are correct and the drill holes are the right size. Fingers crossed there are no schematic errors and the boards all function first time. I've purchased some fresh solder paste and some new tacky paste flux from http://www.ultrakeet.com.au. Hopefully it will arrive before the weekend so that I can build one of these beauties.
I only really need one of these so I'll probably sell the others assembled on e-bay. It will be difficult however as they look so nice! Knowing now that they do a silkscreen on the back of the board too I would have put a logo or something. Oh well next time!
Final design of Speedo Healer
Well I've just put the finishing touches on the boards and set the design off to custompcb.com. I did find I stuffed up the footprint for the rotary switches (oops!). So that's been fixed. I've gone over it with a fine tooth comb now and couldn't find any more errors. I've also check all the components on a print out and they all fit just fine.
Can't wait!
I've attached the gEDA PCB file and the Gerbers.
Another boring board update. :)
Another boring update, I've moved the screw terminals and the input dials into the center of the board for better case layout. I've also moved the LED into a more visible location rather that being buried on the board between all those SMD parts.
I've found a better sized 16V zener diode that uses a SMA403D package rather than the ugly and large SOD223.
I also did a general tidy up and straighten of the traces and part. I like parts that line up! :) I also took a crack at fixing the silk screen too. I'll put the logo and my URL back on it once I'm completely happy.
I've place an order for all the parts from Farnells so I should see them tomorrow or Monday. Once I have the parts I'll test the layout on paper before I send the design off for manufacture. I must remember to double check the pin-outs on all those NPN/PNP transistors too! Nothing worse than the boards coming back and the footprint is wrong!
Motorcycle Speedo Healer SMD PCB - V0.98
Made some adjustments to the board. I decided I should put the regulator on the backside so that it has access to the large copper layer for heat sinking. The regulator can easily be hand soldered once the upper components have been re-flowed. I'm planning on using the tried and tested "toaster oven" method of production for these boards as a number of the parts I've used would be hard to solder with my hot air work station.
I've also made a little "FromOrbit" logo, it's pretty basic but I like it. :)
I'll post the schematic and board layouts soon. They are done with open source tools (gEDA Gschema and PCB).
Motorcycle Speedo Healer SMD PCB - V0.9
Due to other family members requesting the same Speedo Healing goodness my brother has thanks to my little board I decided I should put together a more "professional" board with a custom PCB.
So here it is!
It's basically the same layout as my previous one which is based on a Silicon Chip design from a few years ago.
I've dropped all the 8.2V stuff along with the AC speedo output due to the fact that 100% of the bikes I know and love don't have anything different than a 5V to 12V speedo signal. Only Nissan's and some strange European cars need them.
It's a single sided load with only the selector switches (HEX and BCD rotary) and the screw terminals being through hole. I will require plated-holes however, so I'm going to send this design off to CustomPCB once I've gone over it with a fine tooth comb for errors. I usually get all the parts together and layout the design on a printout just to make sure all the components are the correct size and fit comfortably.
I'm hoping with this design I'll be able to build a few of the them and post them on EBay for willing suckers owners!
Motorcycle Speedo Healer
My brothers VTR1000F has had it's motor rebuilt after it chewed through it's valves one day. His bike has never had a very accurate speedo and it always seemed to be reading fast. So after he got his engine fixed and back together I had a look at all the cabling and the speedo itself. The speedo signal is simply a TTL pulse with a varying frequency. At first we though the sensor was busted, so we replaced it with another. But in the end it would appear that the original owner of the bike had changed the front and rear sprockets up and down a tooth each giving an error at the meter of over 20%!.
So, I built the above little tiny board to correct this error and make his speedo much more accurate. It's basically a frequency shifter that can move the frequency of the incoming signal up or down a fixed percentage. This is controlled by the jumpers.
This was my first double-sided doughnut board, and also the first time I've used Kapton tape to mount SOIC. It worked rather well and I was very happy with the results. It was a little fiddly but well worth the effort. I could have built a custom board, but I had this built in less than 12 hours from start to finish. If I had etched the board I would have been still doing the layout!