{"id":427,"date":"2015-09-30T15:25:33","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T22:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/?p=427"},"modified":"2015-09-30T15:25:33","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T22:25:33","slug":"pcb-layout-for-the-power-transfer-controller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/pcb-layout-for-the-power-transfer-controller\/","title":{"rendered":"PCB Layout for the Power Transfer Controller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around September 15, 2015, I felt confident enough in the design to start printed circuit layout. I’m using a free tool called DesignSpark. This is how far I got as of September 29, 2015:<\/p>\n

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The red is the top copper layer, cyan is the bottom copper. Nets yet to be routed are the yellow lines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although I don’t work on this layout every day, I do put many hours into it. So far, I think I’m averaging about 10 minutes to place and route each component. This might seem to be low productivity to someone unfamiliar with layout, but considering multiple re-do’s over the course of layout, I think it’s not bad. Remember that in a large software project, good productivity is one line of code per day, per person.<\/p>\n

My strategy for layout was first to place the main inductor at the middle of the board, then place the supercapacitors and synchronous rectifiers. I tried to use traces as thick as possible, and will route high current paths on both sides of the board when possible. I also need to add copper fills to some areas, because the PCB copper is the only heat sink that the synchronous rectifiers will have.<\/p>\n

Next after that, I put in the input and output connectors, bulk capacitors, and current sensors, since these are to be near the edge of the board, and the wires need clearance.<\/p>\n

The next most critical thing is the main switch (MOSFET), which must be in a location that can be well heat-sinked, as well as physically close to the load it will drive.<\/p>\n

Oddly, the lowest priority for routing is the processor, which is low power, anyway, and can go pretty much anywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around September 15, 2015, I felt confident enough in the design to start printed circuit layout. I’m using a free tool called DesignSpark. This is how far I got as of September 29, 2015: Although I don’t work on this layout every day, I do put many hours into it. So far, I think I’m … Continue reading PCB Layout for the Power Transfer Controller<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}