Calling all tech nerds.. I am currently building a RF tube amplifier project to take less than a watt of power at FM 96.9Mc and get it up to 10 or so using a 7551 tube. The circuit works flawlessly on the test breadboard at the moment but now it's time to transfer it to a more permanent home...
Well I ran out of perfboards and soldering terminal strips. Besides the circuit must be small even for being tube type to reduce RF problems with wire length and such.
Okay my project aside, what are all the alternative ways you can think of to design circuits and maybe I could get a bit of help on my own project.
Some of the ways I am familiar with is using a cake pan upside down as a chassis to mount tubes and transformers and have the guts on the inside. I used to do that often with tube transmitters and it works well for HF stuff.
Perfboards are my favorite way to go for smaller circuits. It's not professional like etched boards but good enough for most projects.
I have used deadbug style before on copper boards and used 1meg ohm resistors as standoffs. That works well for some things.
And of course can't forget about point to point wiring using soldering terminal strips like all the old tube radios made back in the 60s were made like.
What I am looking for is completely new ideas. We are always coming up with brilliant ideas for building stuff to cut cost but still build quality stuff. I even seen someone build a radio using no board at all, it was all point to point using hard pieces of wire. It was fragile and could be squashed if not careful but it did work w/o any chassis, board, or even enclosure, all completely exposed which was cool and really neat to educate those who see it working as to how it worked at its skeletal structure.
Tubes are hard to work with using wacky alternatives since they get warm. I remember as a kid using stiff cardboard as a platform to build stuff on. Just poke a hole using a pen and push the part lead through it and solder on the other side. It worked for experimenting.
I thought about getting something as hard and could handle heat as well as perfboards that was just a solid sheet and cut it to the size I need and drill the holes where I need to fit the parts and solder on the opposite end much like perfboard but I don't know what material would work for that or could survive soldering heat and warm parts in operation.
So yeah that's what this thread is. Any ideas are welcome. May as well get creative. I don't want to fork out another 5$ to ratshack for a sheet of perforated board just to build something. Besides the cakepan idea plus point to point soldering may work just as well besides lead length at VHF inside for point to point wires.
About that second to last paragraph I didn't explain enough. You guys know what perfboards are right? Those project boards you can get from ratshack and has holes spaced just right to fit ICs and stuff. I was thinking of just getting a normal unperforated board made out of the same material or something that would work as well. Drill the holes where I need them using a dremel tool and solder on the backside just like many do with perfboards.
Problem here is that the board must be supportive, must handle solder heat. I can't think of any material that would work for this. That's what I am asking down here, anyone know of any material that's non conductive that could work like that? There must be some kind of super cheap alternative to using premade perforated boards. Besides drilling my own holes would be more fun and may look more professional. I guess it comes down to board size and what temp it can handle.
Yes I know I could just get a copper board and etch out what I want or use chemicals and stuff to make my own circuits. But that cost money. It's time to think of cheap alternatives.
I had an old Gates audio console ages ago that had this thick circuit board like material where they did something similar. They just drilled holes where need be and wired under it like point to point.
One last thing (sorry for yapping so much lol, damn coffee)..
I have seen many projects for pirate radio/ham radio, and other fields using dead-bug, perfboard, etched boards, point 2 point, open bare design. I haven't found many other techniques beyond those basics. There are other well known design ideas like using cake pans upside down for tube projects for a quick chassis, building AF amplifiers onto wood boxes, even using unsoldered boards and then mounting parts where they may fit to make connection. In digital stuff I have seen a bunch of designs. Wire wrapping being the biggest one.
I'm just thinking there has to be more. Someone has to come up with the next best thing to play around with.
Well, as one who finds SS impossible to work with, I think I can help you
They key to tubes are good shielding. Fortunately, lots of good chassis material is at hand with computer PSU cases (my favorite for small projects) or using the metal tops from CD's, DVD's, stereo's, etc. That cheap, annealed steel solders really good and keeps RF in very well.
What bending tools do you have?
Point-to-point using terminal strips are fine, just keep leads short.
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