PCBs & soldering

Now I can play with some of the INA high side current sensors. The solder pads on the bottom allow to jumper each pin to Vcc, GND or leave it floating - as needed. There's also room for two capacitors. It is really a shame that it takes 3 weeks for airmail to get to me from the US of A. I blame customs for that. I wonder why they don't employ more staff and speed things up. There must be a system behind that.

I have a couple of PT4115 LED drivers in the mail. This adapter will allow me to prototype on breadboard / perfboard without too much trouble as far as soldering is concerned.

I have a couple of PT4115 LED drivers in the mail. This adapter will allow me to prototype on breadboard / perfboard without too much trouble as far as soldering is concerned.

It is still missing a few important parts... power connector + labels, footprint for optional soft-start capacitor... If you should have an idea what else to put on there, let me know. Keep in mind that these modules should be 'dumb' and there will be another board which is supposed to control them (PWM dimming, maybe IR receiver or PIR sensor). The board is designed to run at 24V DC (or a bit less) and will draw about 100mA. Total light output should be 180lm. If the cooling via the copper pour is sufficient, I might increase the current a bit.

There's a face, yes I can definitely see a face on the board.

I shouldn't be able to say this, but I AM surprised how small these traces actually are. I will need to use a magnifier to be able to cut them - if the blade is narrow enough...

Next time I'll remove the traces in the gerber files. Much easier than cutting these tiny tiny things...

Not tested yet...

If this track had to carry a lot of current I would have to worry about it, but only 100mA will pass through it.

Seems they found a problem and fixed it right away.

Seems they found a problem and fixed it right away.

In this case it's not detrimental.

Not a show stopper.

I will NOT do this again.