DIY 500 series units from scratch

[doulos30]

awesome work!

[Sandersonic]

Thanks very much! :-)

[Eraserfish]

Wow, that's a clean board layout! Have you built most of your 500 series boards yourself? I'm just getting into the 500 thing and I'm looking for a good place to start. I'm sure I'll be doing some tweaking later, but for now I'm trying to get into some premade kits that I can put together to save money over just buying them. Do you have any reccommendations for websites, kits, or boards that you like?

[Sandersonic]

Hi and thanks!
Yes, I designed & did the layout for the PCBs and the front panel as well as selecting & sourcing all the parts. The only thing I didn't do was design the circuit. I was handed a basic schematic and I took it from there.
As far as module kit recommendations go I can't really say much since I'm making all original modules and I haven't built any others, but there sure is a lot of really interesting & well supported stuff out there!
I will however very strongly recommend that for a module rack, you go with the DIY 51X rack & PSU. It's excellent quality and you get 11 spaces per 3U rack. I have two racks and a double PSU (in a 2U housing) which yields 22 module spaces for not too much more money than a pre-built 10-space rack with PSU (when you consider that you get more than double the amount of slots). Also, you can buy it in stages and expand as you need to. The PSU can be built one side at a time so you can always add a second rack & PSU later. Plus, the guys who designed & sell it are a real pleasure to deal with and the build thread is really comprehensive should you need some help.

Here are some links to the GDIY/51X stuff:

GroupdDIY 511 Racks: 3rd round available

Newbie builds GroupDIY 51X rack

Good luck & thanks for your compliment!
Regards,
Frank

[agentile1990]

That looks super clean. Kudos Frank. I just finished building my first VP26 (and gar1731) from Jeff. It sits in a groupDIY VPR rack. The PSU was done over the summer and is a hodge podge of my own case design and a JLM smoothing circuit.
This DIY stuff is great and yours is a prime example of why this format is a great investment.

I see that you sourced all the parts. I'm trying to prototype a testing bi-polar power supply that runs off the DC rails in the rack. I really like how your L-bracket makes placing the card connector easier than being super precise on one PCB. I've been digging around for places to get blank L-brackets like that, but I can't find any. Ideas?

Keep up the great work!

[Sandersonic]

Thanks for your comments!
Regarding the L-brackets; I bought up the last of what Volker had in stock. If I remember correctly, I think he said that Jeff made or had some so you might try there. Volker said at the time that he would not be re-stocking the L-brackets. However, they'd be pretty easy to have made since it's just one bend. And yes, it makes the PCB placement easier! What I did was mount the control card and the front panel first. Then I took the main PCB and stuck it in the backplane so that it was almost bottomed-out in the connector and then just marked the bracket with a pen through the mounting holes in the PCB. This worked fine since I was only making 10 units. If I ever get to the point of larger-scale production, I'd have everything pre-drilled.

Be sure & post some pictures & info about what you're up to as well!!

Regards,
Frank