initial layout and super glue mess
Now that the board is sized its time to melt some solder. I’m not sure what the real first step is supposed to be. I’ve heard Eric Guth on the QSO Today podcast talk to a number of builders and answers vary from the audio amp to the Local Oscillator. I decided to start with getting power to the chips. Once I had that figured out I’d have a better idea of where the local oscillator would go on the board. I also decided to add a couple of steps to the power input. One is a reverse polarity protecting diode and the second was a 5V regulator. Since I don’t have a real 5V power supply, I am likely to power this with a 9V battery. The NE602 has a max V+ of 8V so I want to make sure that my V+ stays at 5V and not fry anything.
Power stage complete. . . almost
You will see on the board I’ve laid out and superglued the 8 pin DIP sockets as well as the initial pads for the power rail. Lessons learned from this experience. Don’t put superglue on the pad then try to place it on the board. Put the superglue on the board and then set the pad on the glue. If you don’t you will smear superglue on your board as you can see in my picture above. The other lesson I learned was to be a little more thoughtful on where you run the wire from one side of the board to the other. I think I would run it a little closer to the chips so that the Local oscillator could have a little shorter leads over the power wire to the NE602.
If you look closely at my picture and study the schematic from the initial post, you will note that I’ve wired something incorrectly. It can be easily seen in this photo (left). Can you spot it? Leave a comment below when you find it.
The build has begun. . . More to come!
I’m a relatively new ham. Got my license, joined a club and I’m having fun! I enjoy CW, pedestrian mobile, backpacking, and I dream of building radios at some point. At present I have a wife and daughters so my building time is limited.
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