Spiff's Electronics Notebook

TC64x based fan controllers (March 3, 2009)

Based on microchips TC64x series of chips, these are easy to build, use, and understand temperature sensitive fan controllers.

Checkout their project page or directions, then find them in the store or build your own from the sources.

fan kit microchip SingleSided store
Posted by spiffed at 4:07 PM | Comments (0)

555 based SMPS (February 22, 2008)

One of my tasks involved a 105V supply voltage, and therefore a 105V power supply. This simple 555 based switch mode power supply performs nicely around 100 to 300 volts (depending on load) from a 9 to 12 volt supply.

Continue reading "555 based SMPS"

555 HV Kit OnPaper SingleSided SMPS
Posted by spiffed at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)

Single Sided FT232RL USB-Serial Converter (January 25, 2008)

Unsatisfied with everything else, I present the simple, single-sided, breadboardable, FT232RL based USB to TTL Serial converter.

I know you're thinking "But everyone under the sun makes an FT232 kit!", and you're right. But they all suffer from a selection of problems:

• Double sided boards with tiny vias. Not only are these a pain to solder by hand, they also require perfect precision to etch and drill at home.
• 7 million parts butted as close to each other as the pick-and-place can tolerate. I can't assemble these with tweezers.
• Signals and power brought out to a DIL style header. There's simply no effective way to plug a DIL header into a breadboard. It's a functional system for wirewrap, perfboards, and stripboards but so is a DIP style connection. It's not very helpful for custom PCBs either, since I might as well integrate the whole circuit into the board.
• You get the idea.

The answer of course is to design a simple, roomy, single sided board, with a DIP like fit.

Continue reading "Single Sided FT232RL USB-Serial Converter"

Eagle3D FT232 Kit PCB Serial SingleSided SMD USB
Posted by spiffed at 12:27 PM