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Wishing I knew how to etch PCBs.

A project log for Audio Frequency Display

A project for Physics class.

compucatCompuCat 03/04/2015 at 04:490 Comments

As you can probably guess from the title, I just had to do a humongous soldering job. First, let's back up a bit earlier in our story.

I made a couple changes to the circuit, including shorting the gain pins of the LM386s to boost the signal gain and removing the small RC and DC blocking capacitors on the output of the amplifiers. After implementing the circuit on a breadboard, I tested and began to dissassemble it for soldering. I only remembered to take the photo right after I began pulling apart the breadboard version, but most of the parts are still on there.

Quite a mess, huh? It gets worse. I had to take these parts and then transfer them onto a 5x7cm piece of perfboard. There were quite a few more jumpers than I would have liked, but I don't know how to etch PCBs yet (which would have been quite handy) and I didn't have the time (The project is due next Wednesday, March 11, 2015). Here's a couple of photos (with various objects for scale). Next up: building the actual display board and mounting the lights.

People really need to stop using quarters as size references! All these other coins are feeling quite left out.

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