Tractor Beam update

[madbean]

Progress has been made on the Tractor Beam (phaser) and is on schedule for release probably in 7-10 days. I got the audio board populated after waiting on a couple parts from Mouser. The Tractor Beam was originally called the Enterprise and is built on the same board. There are a few value tweaks from the Enterprise so the pot values here are not all accurate.

This will be a difficult build, but if you have done one of the VFE already it shouldn't be too bad. There is on electro that has to be soldered in parallel with a Zener (top right). There are three resistor networks (two 10k and one 22k). It also requires four matched 2n5952 FETs. I actually had a set I previously matched for a different project and was no longer using. The doc will have instructions on how to match FETs (I think I may have already covered this in the Phase 90 doc). The "B10k" is actually 1k now, and only having 2k on-hand I soldered in another 2k resistor in parallel with it.

Also, I have a FET matching board I may just put up on OSH Park. It was supposed to be part of a small batch of utility boards I was going to offer for sale but I never got around to it.

Anyway, to do: build the switching board and test it out. My prototypes for the re-designs of the VFE switching board will be here in a few days so I think I will wait and test one of those out with this build.

[Zigcat]

Decent!

[BrianS]

Brian,
Anyway you might beable to post the board page with all the parts like you did with the Choral Reef? If you can't it's no big deal. Thanks. 

[lego4040]

awesome, will keep watch

[Ralfg]

What Function F(x) board is that in the background?

[m-Kresol]

What Function F(x) board is that in the background?

should be the clusterfuzz.

that phaser layout is really closely packed...

[dan.schumaker]

That looks really cool.  Never used resistor array's before.  Looks like a really smart way to save a lot of space on a really packed board.

[madbean]

Here is the draft of the Tractor Beam BOM/Shopping list. I have a bit of debugging to do on my build but I believe this list is accurate.

[dan.schumaker]

As always, thanks Brian!

[Hirti]

Thank you!

[hasanova]

Cheers!

[tcpoint]

The 1.43K resistor that you link to mouser is way too big.  It's a Vishay Dale that's the same size as a 1/2 watt Xicon.   I did a quick search but couldn't find anything suitable.  I'll probably get some smd resistors of that value and make them work.  After all, it's diy.

[madbean]

Huh - 8mm. That is a bit long (though they could be made standing). Here are two 6mm ones (still a bit long):

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay-Dale/RN55D1431FRE6/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMu61qfTUdNhGzQiLrTi4xBWc4N7jZ0yHC0%3d
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay-Dale/RN55D1431FB14/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMu61qfTUdNhG3gu04FpCMicro03p17NpK8%3d

Thanks for posting that. I forget which one I used...I'll have to look.

[Jules]

Have you made any progress with the debugging of your build Brian?
Just in case you read this, thanks.
I have been really enjoying these VFE builds.

[madbean]

Have you made any progress with the debugging of your build Brian?
Just in case you read this, thanks.
I have been really enjoying these VFE builds.

Yeah, it's pretty much done. Should be releasing later this week. Turns out it was user error. I'm the user.