Can the pcb fab guys tell me why my VCC is shown as GND in the pcb view? Can’t for the life of me figure out where I’ve gone wrong and having everything being gnd makes shit confusing
I recommend using easyeda.
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Problem solved. Grounded the VCC as soon as it exited the connector
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New design implementing the 100v circuit by @Gamer43 and 2 500mA fused 12v outputs. Will add a 5v circuit and go from there. Still looking into using PWM to mess with lights, we’ll see.
I hate this current layout, will try and work on making it smaller.
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Will add more outputs tomorrow. About as compact as it’ll get for now. Currently 30mm x 22mm in size. Wanna keep it under 50mm x 50mm or so.
In its current state the board costs around $12AUD to have produced, including connectors. Considering how little functionality it currently feature I was hoping it would be cheaper. Gonna have to get a bunch built to make it worthwhile
Edit: If I order 15 boards and all associated components, it will cost $8 per board. Will probably hold a GB once boards are at a final version.
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Whats your pcb stackup? 2 layer pcb?
I havnt looked at your layout in detail but i’d at least try keep bottom layer as a solid groundplane, and keep the path to the inductor short and fat from the regulator. Keep any other signals away from it that could be harmed from the switching.
Also screw EDA, use kicad. It hardly has any downsides. (I use altium cause work dont favor OS)
(Poke me if you have something I can review so you’ll spend less money redesigning it)
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with 5v 3A you can power a raspberry pi, which means hormones boosted Davega, sounds like something to takes me back to software devlopping
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My knee jerk reaction to the xt60(?) mount is that it’d add a lot of unnecessary height to the board.
But the option is nice if you have the package space, and it’s always possible to just solder leads on, ignoring the holes.
Only other feedback is that it looks like you have room to beef up the traces for more current if they become an issue, but ~3mm on 1oz would already be plenty for ~5A
https://www.4pcb.com/trace-width-calculator.html
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So I can get SMD XT60 that sits flat against the PCB. If this is still too high the connector can be swapped out, only chose it as it’s the defacto standard for esk8.
Spec has been lowered to 1A per voltage so shouldn’t need big massive traces. That sort of stuff I’ll finalize later, probably after feature lock
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Awesome project! I’m excited to see where you take this. Keep up the good work 
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I think the graphic of the footprint threw me off, your comment just reminded me that a panel mount options existed at all (both straight and 90 degree).
To that point, an xt30 (30A!) is absloutely tiny and should be plenty.
but like you said, probably a bit out of order at this point.
I’m using a LM2596 bodged in right now, am always interested in seeing a more elegant solution.
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You’re definitely right about using XT30. Gotta check if that’s also available in panel mount.
If you have any specific features you wanna see let me know, I want this to actually be useful for lots of people and so far it’s just useful for me
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Is very useful for me too!!! Actually waiting to see your progress and future release, what’s your plan, you will sell them? Maybe open source? Anyway, I’m in for a set.
Thanks to create it!!
Plan is to spend a while (far too long) developing this, and I will open source it once I do some reading on what that entails. Pretty sure it will be GPL. I will be selling complete boards as well as having all information available on ordering your own boards and where to buy the connectors (PCB service doesn’t support connectors yet) and how to install and stuff. Kinda like what @shaman has done with CFOC2 but I will be selling them too
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V0.2 of the VPU. I have now implemented 12v, 5v and 3v3 with each having 2 500mA fused outputs. The passive component selection was based on TI’s Wedesign tool using the ‘Highest Efficiency’ option. I’m yet unsure of the cost of this unit as I’m unable to get my CPL and BOM files working properly with JLCPCB. The methods for creating these files, described online in various forums. simply doesn’t work for me. There’s a Python script that can do it for me, but am unable to get it working. There is still a bit to be done to get it to a stage I’m happy with. Silkscreen needs to be cleaned up, layout is fairly close to being done. Current carrying traces need to be beefed up a lil. I want to implement some smart logic that will automatically switch between the PWM outputs if one fails.
This project is taking a backburner as I’m going hard on personal video production and streaming while I’m not working much. If anyone is genuinely keen on this I’ll try push it out quicker
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Any progress? This unit it is what I really need
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Not at this stage no. In its current state, does it achieve what you need it to? I can clean it up and get them ready for production if you’re eagerly awaiting to power multiple low power devices on your board
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Adjusting the intensity of a brake light? Although it might not drive enough power to be used as a LED power source.
For fuses have you tought about using mini blade? They are cheap and available every where.
If you want help solving a couple of issues if you still have some I’d be glad to help with anything you’d like.
Also have you thought about making the design modular, might be cool to be able to daisy chain the modules to add expansion capabilities.
And ont thing that still bamboozles me is the connectors used for balancing vescs and almost every signal cable in the esk8 industry are not that vibration resistant. I could take a good look on what is available that would reduce the risk of vibration related unseating of connectors.
Good work on the board, the layout looks really good!
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Thanks mate! I never intended for this to be a large serious project, more of an extended learning exercise for myself. There are far more intelligent people than myself that have the skills to be able to create a series of modules that achieve a bunch of different things. I’d love to expand what I know, but don’t expect me to have a massive lineup of amazing products. I’ll let you know if I need help mate
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