Bring out yer Diptrace

[pingpongcomputer]

Thanks for the help everyone, I've been watching youtube diptrace tutorials but they haven't been audio focused, just getting an assembly together. I learned how to use vias this morning and I think I've cleaned things up pretty well, but I'm going to try to optimize component placement some more for a shorter audio path. Grounds look better though and I think all the big islands are gone, just a little one near the traces between trim2 and the density spst.

 

[Brett]

Grounds look better though and I think all the big islands are gone

Indeed, the ground pours do look better, however, you may want to increase thermal spoke count. Take a look at the ground pad "G" on the bottom left. There's only one spoke connecting the pad. Many others only have two. Two is acceptable if you're not dealing with increased currents, but I personally like to have at least three, preferably four. You should be able to select a setting that removes copper islands in your ground pour.

I learned how to use vias this morning and I think I've cleaned things up pretty well

Vias can make things easier and are necessary at times, but they shouldn't be used as a crutch for a subpar layout.

• Take a look under R13. You can just route that trace on the bottom layer and skip the vias.
• Same with the trace under C2. The trace that's going to "RE" pad on the bottom right can just be routed around pin 1 of the BLEND pot and CLR2, no via necessary.
• The trace connecting R6 can be brought to the top layer and lose one via there.
• I'd also increase your trace width for any traces carrying power. Some of yours look a little thin.
• Also, a reminder, your footprint for C7 and C20 are a bit small if you're planning on using box film caps.

These are just a couple things I noticed at a quick glance. Not to sound too critical, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, and I'd start by optimizing the component placement.

 

[pingpongcomputer]

Indeed, the ground pours do look better, however, you may want to increase thermal spoke count. Take a look at the ground pad "G" on the bottom left. There's only one spoke connecting the pad. Many others only have two. Two is acceptable if you're not dealing with increased currents, but I personally like to have at least three, preferably four. You should be able to select a setting that removes copper islands in your ground pour.


Vias can make things easier and are necessary at times, but they shouldn't be used as a crutch for a subpar layout.

• Take a look under R13. You can just route that trace on the bottom layer and skip the vias.
• Same with the trace under C2. The trace that's going to "RE" pad on the bottom right can just be routed around pin 1 of the BLEND pot and CLR2, no via necessary.
• The trace connecting R6 can be brought to the top layer and lose one via there.
• I'd also increase your trace width for any traces carrying power. Some of yours look a little thin.
• Also, a reminder, your footprint for C7 and C20 are a bit small if you're planning on using box film caps.

These are just a couple things I noticed at a quick glance. Not to sound too critical, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, and I'd start by optimizing the component placement.

I'm grateful for the help and I'll take any criticism and suggestion. I wasn't trying to sound like I had it all figured out, just to say how well everything cleaned up after the suggestions, reading it back I can see how it comes off cocky though, I do not feel that way and know that I'm far from being good at this. I accidentally left the routing for the ground net on the bottom layer and was jumping over it with vias which was making things unnecessarily complicated. Those are gone now and I'm re-doing pretty much everything for better component placement. It's a little sad to scrap most of the work, but I learned a bunch a long the way. Taking note of everything else to incorporate in the new layout, thank you.

 

[derevaun]

One thing I like to do is save a copy and just unroute the whole thing and redo it. I always find a few ways to simplify. Or even (gasp) run the auto-router just to see what it comes up with. Usually it reveals where moving a part could lead to simpler routing.

I also like to keep in mind that while there's real satisfaction to designing an elegant layout, it's OK to just be done with a wild convolution that's still gonna sound just fine as a dirt box. So prioritizing parallel traces and squeezed current paths, e.g., gets me there faster. Even long traces on the board (notwithstanding interference) are gonna be shorter than some offboard wires. This shit is supposed to be fun--if it isn't anymore, I'm back to board shopping.

 

[finebyfine]

continuing to throw an opamp octave up in front of every circuit. this is into a frantone creampuff into the grindcorefx ultrastoner tone stack with a black tiger boost tacked onto the end

 

[Brett]

continuing to throw an opamp octave up...

One of the 2M2 resistors in the bottom left has the value facing the wrong direction. Not sure if you noticed, but it'd drive me nuts if I missed that before sending it off for fabrication.

 

[Brett]

A follow-up to my previous post, did you intend on using RED LED clippers on OA1/OA2 of the 4558? If so, your board has DO-35/DO-41 footprints in those positions. Not sure if that was intentional. Your board looks great if I didn't mention that before.

 

[finebyfine]

One of the 2M2 resistors in the bottom left has the value facing the wrong direction. Not sure if you noticed, but it'd drive me nuts if I missed that before sending it off for fabrication.

Great catch, I caught it a little bit after I posted the screenshot

A follow-up to my previous post, did you intend on using RED LED clippers on OA1/OA2 of the 4558? If so, your board has DO-35/DO-41 footprints in those positions. Not sure if that was intentional. Your board looks great if I didn't mention that before.

I have a handful of 1.5mm axial LEDs that work in that footprint but I also figured I'd try other do-35/41 clippers

 

[Feral Feline]

Cool logo on the PCB, @finebyfine, and the circuit is interesting too.

Might have to breadboard a CreamPuff>UltraStonerTS>TigerBoost.

 

[finebyfine]

Cool logo on the PCB, @finebyfine, and the circuit is interesting too.

Might have to breadboard a CreamPuff>UltraStonerTS>TigerBoost.

The boost isn't super necessary TBH, I just got tired of having to turn up my amp a hair with the creampuff. The red LEDs limit the volume especially with the tone stack, but higher Vf diodes might make the boost even more unnecessary. I simulated the circuit in LTSpice with BAT41s in series with the red LEDs and that really helped the output. The waveshape was pretty similar but I didn't bother to check the harmonic differences and as I'm typing this I'm wondering why I didn't take the 10 seconds to look at the FFT, or take another few minutes to add another diode footprint in series on the pcb.

 

[pingpongcomputer]

Well, it's still a horrible rat's nest, but I don't think I'm capable of doing any better at this point so I sent it off the JLC for 5 boards to see just how noisy it is, and if it even works. With all the coupons it's a pretty cheap experiment.

 

[szukalski]

I seriously don't have time for this stuff right now That said, I made these for the backlog. Anyone guess what I'm trying to do?

 

[Nostradoomus]

Save time later by using up all your time now

 

[jessenator]

Not a board, but a footprint. I was toying with this yesterday after conversing with @jwin615

Wanted a transistor footprint that would accommodate germs, Si BJTs, as well as EBC and ECB jobbies without having to bend the leads as much as a 180* flop. This kinda does that. 1-2-3 is your regular EBC; 143 is your in-line EBC/CBE silicon footprint; 1-5-2 would be an ECB



I can't recall (not feeling well and too lazy to look), but if this exists somewhere, it's likely a better idea/implementation.

 

[Brett]

Here's an AIO layout for ROG's Thunderbird (Marshall Super Lead 100 inspired circuit) . This circuit was off my radar until I read @Chuck D. Bones's build report. 1776 used to offer a board for this one, but they're now closed and it seems nobody else is offering boards for this one currently. I have another layout without the built-in bypass, but including it on this one dramatically simplifies wiring and allows me to better isolate the high impedance input line compared to having the I/O connections at the bottom. A red board seemed fitting for this project, but that may change by the time it's ordered. According to a couple sources, this circuit has a tendency to be noisy, hopefully I've taken sufficient steps in the design to avoid some of that .

 

[finebyfine]

Incredible job on the layout @Brett. Love the relay footprint and seeing someone else use µ on the silkscreen as well. Also just a heads up the bottom 1N581x diodes use a different footprint than the ones on the top of the board, not sure if that’s intentional

 

[Brett]

Incredible job on the layout @Brett. Love the relay footprint and seeing someone else use µ on the silkscreen as well

Thank you, Alex. Hopefully this one works without much excess noise when I get around to ordering and verifying it. Sometimes I even throw an F in there when I forget to abbreviate, lol.

 

[finebyfine]

Thank you, Alex. Hopefully this one works without much excess noise when I get around to ordering and verifying it. Sometimes I even throw an F in there when I forget to abbreviate, lol.

Best of luck!! Also I edited my original reply with another sentence or two just wanna make sure you saw that. I've been known to leave some F's on my boards too if ya know what I mean

 

[Brett]

Also just a heads up the bottom 1N581x diodes use a different footprint than the ones on the top of the board

I'm afraid I don't see what you're referring to. There's only one 1N5819 at the top of the board and it's using my DO-41 footprint, the two diodes by the relay are DO-35. The diodes surrounding the charge pump IC are all DO-41 as well.

 

[finebyfine]

I'm afraid I don't see what you're referring to. There's only one 1N5819 at the top of the board and it's using my DO-41 footprint, the two diodes by the relay are DO-35. The diodes surrounding the charge pump IC are all DO-41 as well.

Oh ok, I was 90% sure that's what the difference was