Alltogether it’s pretty compact, however the problem is that when dealing with these high frequencies and high powers, as EddieB said, there’s lots of things to take into account when making the PCB.
These are rated to “just” 5A, if you want 15Ax2, that’s a whole different thing…
Nonetheless I’ll see what I can come up with in the coming weeks…
I’d bet it isn’t as easy as you think it might be. You will want to pull the datasheet and study the applications information about routing the ground, switched node, and the filtering capacitors. Then figure out how to lay it out in a 1 inch by 1-1/2 inches long with little or no traces on the bottom so you can use it for ground plane.
(this lets you put them 4-up on a single board under an SSC-32/ABB stack.)
Once the components are decided on I will look at the data sheets and review all the relevent information such as recommended wire sizes, spacings, pad sizes component placement, etc…
I have a chart the provides the recommended trace width depending on the amps that is going to be used. Two thin of a trace = burned board.
Another factor is the DRC requirements that sparkfun uses. This will limit available space the wires can be routed.
So ground plane on the bottom, and only SMT components on the top? No problem, but I can now see that this is going to be a tight squeez.
Over the weekend I’ve found time to make some calculations of the resistors for setting the voltages, I have them at home, i’ll upload the schematic with the values tonight.
I’ve been thinking though that maybe it’d be better to use components with external FET’s, so they can be put eg. on the sides of the boards, keeping the high current lines out of the way of feedback lines etc, and it could be handier that way if we’d be wanting some heatsinks.
Anyway I’ll order some other samples, but I’ll still build a prototype with the LM2677 to check the performance.
I think there’s a resistor I implemented for a 3.3V output, I’ll get back to you on that one… edit: the 2k37 resistor should supply about 3.5V, I’ll have to do some fine tuning when i get a prototype working.
In any case it should be perfectly possible.
@SN96: Actually it was a LLP vs T0-263 error… and now I just made a T0-263 vs T0-220 error… I should really start paying more attention to what i’m doing… sleep… sleeeeeeep
I made a similar error with a Digi-key part. it was a connector with a different pin spacing. On one page, it listed .1 connectors which is what I wanted, but when I turned the page looking for a red one, I veered into the larger ones. I can’t remember what the spacing was on those but it wasn’t .1.
Tiny update thingie… I’ve tried a simple PCB layout in the SSC size format, 3x2.3" (that’s the right size, isn’t it?) with three LM2677’s, don’t mind the resistor values, just a test. Here’s the schematic, single input, three outputs.
As you can see there’s lots of room left, but I’m not too sure if it couldn’t use some more caps and bigger tracks, right now they’re 76mil but I think it’s a bit tight for 5A…
Anyway I’m not too happy about the input line yet, the part near connector X1.
Any more inputs/comments would be much appreciated.
/Edit: the pics aren’t best quality, just a quick GIF render of what I’ve got. If anyone would like the actual Eagle files, PM me and I’ll get them online.
/Edit2: yah uhm I changed the connectors to something that could actually handle more than 10mA files not uploaded yet, but i changed the input line too, 100mil line all the way to each single LM2677
so the goal is to have individual regulators for VS1, VS2, and VL on an SSC-32? (just making sure I got the right idea)
comments:
you should add the mounting holes to your board, although the only place I see a conflict is the upper left hand corner of the layout.
would the layout be more convenient to wire to the ssc-32 if the regulators were running the long axis of the board? the three connectors on an ssc-32 are on a narrow end.
you should consider making provisions to sync the 3 regulators to a single clock, something above 300khz. even if you decide not to install the parts, discovering you need/want them after the board has been spun is never fun. you could get serious noise on your ground when drawing significant current. this probably will not effect servos much but if there are analog sensors running downstream of the VL supply it could make them harder to get nice clean answers from. the oscillator could be as simple as a dual gate 'c14 (fairchild tiny logic or the TI equivalents) and an rc time constant set to 350khz or so. a national lp2980aim5-3.3 would be a good tiny regulator to run the oscillator.
The thing is I don’t have an SSC32 nor have I seen one up close, is there anywhere i can find eg. the positions of the mounting holes relative to the board?
The synching could indeed pose a problem, i’ll look into it over the weekend.
Okay, updated board…
Read some more guidelines on the design, apparently we’d wanna keep the input capacitor and flyback diodes as close as possible to the switches, and with the outputs on the smaller sides the design kind of completely changed… anyhow have a look… Top