Thursday, March 26, 2015

PCB SOFTWARE-1

I am making and breaking the circuits say around 1994. I made one copper board, hand pained  from the 20 meter band cw transmitter project by VU2ATN in the  Electronics For You Magazine. At that time it was in paper forms only. Then somewhere around 1998 they added the software in the accompanying  CD. Yes sir at that time they were giving the cd and my 386 computer did not have the cd driver. It only had the floppy. Nostalgic. One time I wanted to market the projects I had made. Well now the technology is very cheap for the prototype we still have to depend on the ancient technique for making one or two PCB by hand.

As making the pcb by professional help will cost more. Then take few thousands for taking the job. Then they etc and provide you PCB in a big lot. After that they make it any time. But, the hobby, amateur pcb has very short demand to make them commercial quality. As the end user might not afford it. And gestation time is very high for selling this PCB.

In those days PCB maker, PCB123 , EAGLE PCB etc were being used. They are still used. But I missed that band wagon.

Suddenly I needed to make few pcb for my 14318kc transmitter as I wanted them to provide for my friends. That way I my need was of about 50 pcb. A friend agreed to sale in his store at reasonable cost. I don't plan to earn money from it. Its an extensions  to share my experience and expertise.

I used the EXPRESS PCB, as suggested  by Om daya and few other friends. Tried. It makes the Circuit diagram ok , but not able to make the pcb copper trace.

Then another friend OM Suyog told me to use the DIP-TRACE pcb making software. It comes in the free student version and one fully professional version with more extensive features.

I liked the Dip-trace. http:\\diptrace.com\ download the freeware 300pin version.
The following ckt is the universal RF amplifier board. It can be used for receiving, transmitting and If amp and lots more. mixer et al.... change the components value and make it compatible. more on that in a separate post.

This is the multipurpose board. Used for various RF purposes ie
RF amplifier, Mixing, IF amplifiers, Transmitters mixer, Transmitter Amplifiers......
ideas is this way. Same board repeated for Front end RF,Mixer,two IF amplifiers, Pins at J4-male, which mates to pin at J1-Female, Similarly J2-J3. the power rail. All this mounted on the Copper plane. The same type of board can be used for RF mixer, RF amp chain, Driver amplifier. Then linear has to be different. Thus the same board can be used differently at different place. Idea is this way. Lets see how it turns out.





(to be continued.....)