{"id":505,"date":"2016-01-20T21:54:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T05:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/?p=505"},"modified":"2026-10-27T16:47:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T23:47:41","slug":"board-assembly-and-bringup-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/board-assembly-and-bringup-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Board Assembly and Bringup 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m in the process of bringing up the Power Transfer Controller (PTC). When I was 16, I might have loaded everything onto the board at once, then just fired it up. Today, I take a more incremental approach, loading the minimum number of components for the next test. The board is loaded with test points, so testing has been relatively easy so far.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild1.jpg\" alt=\"some smt installed\" class=\"wp-image-508\" srcset=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild1.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Putting together the board is a very manual process for a hobbyist like me. As I solder parts on, I check them off on the Bill of Materials (BOM). Note the on-the-fly changes to the BOM, either because of parts availability, or design changes to address problems discovered.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m soldering by hand with a pair of irons, as I don&#8217;t have an SMT hot air tool. If you want to see how&#8230;<br><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V3HQigfzzNM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br>Come to think of it, my wife has an embossing hot air wand. I might try to use that to anneal the solder joints later. Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"567\" src=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild2.jpg\" alt=\"enough parts to actually convert energy\" class=\"wp-image-509\" srcset=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild2.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/files\/2016\/01\/PtcPartialBuild2-300x166.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Here is the board with more parts in place. The inductor is just a temporary one. The actual toroid is the yellow thing in the background to the right. Supercapacitors have not been installed yet, nor most of the synchronous rectifiers. &nbsp;The board as shown is already capable of converting energy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To bring the board up on the bench, I&#8217;ve substituted a laptop power brick for the solar panel, and use incandescent lamps as dummy loads. Although not all parts are loaded, &nbsp;the correct final devices are mounted &#8211; the sole exception being the main inductor. &nbsp;The final part has 25 leads, and would be hard to remove if redesign was required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to my multimeter and scope, I use little test programs to stimulate and test sections of the board. Some of the data is gathered by the PTC&#8217;s own sensors, and printed to a log file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, here are the things that are working. They correspond roughly to the assembly and bringup order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>voltage regulators<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>visibility flasher<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>processor<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>push-button input and indicator LEDs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>sensors (characterization data below for my later use)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>analog voltage limit comparator<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>basic power transfer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>&nbsp;Sensor<\/th><th>&nbsp;Zero Reading Base<\/th><th>&nbsp;Sensitivity<\/th><th>&nbsp;Native Reading<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>&nbsp;Input Voltage<\/td><td>&nbsp;0 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;102 mV\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;50 mV\/V<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;Input Current<\/td><td>&nbsp;106 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;25 mA\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;200 mV\/A<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;Mid Current<\/td><td>&nbsp;103 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;51 mA\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;100 mV\/A<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;Output Voltage<\/td><td>&nbsp;0 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;81 mV\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;63 mV\/V<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;Output Current<\/td><td>&nbsp;103 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;51 mA\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;100 mV\/A<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;Temperature<\/td><td>&nbsp;0 counts<\/td><td>&nbsp;0.51 \u00baC\/count<\/td><td>&nbsp;10 mV\/\u00baC<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m in the process of bringing up the Power Transfer Controller (PTC). When I was 16, I might have loaded everything onto the board at once, then just fired it up. Today, I take a more incremental approach, loading the minimum number of components for the next test. The board is loaded with test points, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/board-assembly-and-bringup-1\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Board Assembly and Bringup 1<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electrical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/solarbike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}