Hi Everyone,
I'm building my first project which consists of two AA battery powered
modules- a transmitter & receiver. I've been looking at
various step up/buck power circuits and trying to find something that
was relatively efficient for decent battery life, simple, cheap and
doesn't take a lot of PCB space. It seems that the only way to meet
all those requirements is using SMD parts as all the PTH parts tend to
have higher part counts (inductors for example), higher costs and
obviously take up a lot more space.
I've done a fair bit of research on the web about soldering SMD parts
and looks like this should be quite doable by hand. The only issue of
course is that I don't yet have a board to solder them to for testing.
I'm planning on designing my own boards for this project, but one
really nice thing about PTH parts is being able to go from breadboard
to perfboard to PCB and test/learn/tweak along the way.
Anyways, I was hoping to get some insight on how to proceed in way to
keep my costs down (ie: avoid costly mistakes).
I was thinking perhaps of initially designing a small board which
would have the 4 components and have standard 0.1in pins for testing
on a bread/perf board and have them done by BatchPCB or the like. I'd
be in for about $10 in components + 3 small PCB's for testing purposes
and when I was done I'd have some
nice little power modules left over for other future projects. Once I
know I've got everything working, I'd be able to transfer that design
to the final design for my project.
The other idea I had was to just design the transmitter PCB which is a
lot smaller/less complex then the receiver. I suppose my chances of
getting a small PCB with even just PTH parts right the first time is
slim to nil, so perhaps it's just better to get it over with? That
way I could test/debug/learn on a bit more involved board rather then
just 4 small components which may have limited learning opportunity.
Any suggestions on how to prototype/test SMD based circuits without
spending lots of time, effort and money making mistakes? I've never
designed a board before, but with PTH parts at least I have a chance
to test the circuit ahead of time. With SMD parts, I feel like I'm
sorta guessing what will and won't work.
Thanks!
--
Aaron Turner
http://synfin.net/%c2%a0 Twitter: @synfinatic
http://tcpreplay.synfin.net/ - Pcap editing and replay tools for Unix & Windows
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin
"carpe diem quam minimum credula postero"