Manhattan Circuit Construction Technique for Homebrew Ham Radios
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- Опубліковано 7 тра 2024
- This Manhattan Circuit Construction Technique for Homebrew Ham Radios is very common with ham radio homebrewers. Doug DeMaw, W1FB, wrote an article titled ”Quick-and-Easy Circuit Boards for the Beginner” detailing construction using what is referred to as dead bug or ugly construction. In the same article by Doug DeMaw, Figure 3 shows the use of printed circuit board squares glued to the main printed circuit board. The squares are used to solder component leads to for common electrical and mechanical connections. This technique is attributed to Wes Hayward, W7ZOI, and Wes suggested using hot glue as a fixitive to hold the pads in place.
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For those wondering, this is for circuit where you need a huge ground plane. Anything high frequency, radio stuff, filters, etc. If you think a regular perf board will work, this technique is beyond your knowledge level for now
👍
Than is point-to‐point wiring or components to same points also better for amps i take it. ( like the 60s gitar-tubeamps build. With a hardboard layout ,one row of point on top and one row at other end everything 'zig-zag' to many common points . Everything as short in distance as possible the tube wire twined and solid metal casing were al ground/mass conects to.
Or is this tech in vid essentially different?
Will this board somehow give me a “ground” while living in a Waikiki high rise that has no real ground with all the PVC that’s been used for plumbing repairs? 🤔
For those wondering, this guy's arrogance places courtesy and good manners well beyond their knowledge level.
There's pretty much zero advantage of this over just etching a circuit on a pcb with a ground copper pour. Less wasted time and money too
In high-school electronics shop class we etched the circuit into the copper and then drilled into the board to attach the components after covering the copper with solder
I did too. I think the point of this construction is to have a good ground plain for high frequency or low noise applications. I wouldn't use super glue though.
@@BlankBrainpcb has two sides. You could just not cut into the other side. Drill holes, go through, solder. This video already mounts stuff on the surface. PCB makes this easier. I like wires in the air. Nothing has lower k.
That's far better than this nonsense.
@@Bobsmith-yf9oyThis ground plane technique allows circuits to work up to high uhf bands and lower microwaves.. with many other techniques one has to really know rf pcb design.. I've never had a problem with unstable circuits..also it's quite easy to manage return currents to minimize emi. But yes..not my go to way to make other type of circuits at home
@@Bobsmith-yf9oy RF design is often quite an iterative process. Ofcourse if you use a tested schematic from someone else, etching would work very well. But many HAMs design their own circuitry from scratch for components they have on hand. Usually you draw up something, and start correcting values, adding extra components, moving them around etc until your circuit does what you want it to do. Simulating doesn't work anymore here, paracitic inducantces and capacitances play a large role now too.
Obviously most of these cases you need only one of such device, you already made something that's probably quite sturdily built, so there's no point to go through the whole process to etch a PCB anymore. It's a super popular technique that's been in use for decades for prototyping.
Just go dig up some pictures of circuit design techniques from engineers like Bob Pease, maybe one of the most influential analog engineers in the silicon domain to have ever lived, he'd build discrete chip designs just like this technique to debug everything before translating it into a chip, a lot of them still being in production today. I personally have built equipment with this technique that's been going for over a decade now, weekly use, never had any trouble because it was mechanically inferior.
This gives "HUGE GROUND PLANE" a new meaning.
Another technique you can do is use a Dremel tool to remove the copper to make the islands. It took a while for my manhattans chowder tin from QRP me to arrive so I ended up using that for a transceiver project I’ve been working on.
Doesn't work with solid metal, which matters because sometimes people will use the metal of a case as part or all of the ground, while you can pretty much always cut any copper-clad that you have into small pieces for use as the "islands" in Manhatten style.
A relative is Dead-Bug style, where essentially you glue down the sonductive top of an IC, then solder to it's legs. Dead bug is highly compatible with Manhatten style.
You can also use a laser to vaporize the bits of copper you don't need. It's a bit less of a mess, but the equipment buy in is a lot more.
Ive never once seen it done like this, and I've worked with a lot of old home made electronics.
Manhattan style is great for RF projects since you have that massive ground plane. Using protoboard can sometimes create parasitic capacitance that you might not want
Breadboards under the plastic have big ground plains and positive power rails... Works just as good and if you need a bigger ground for signal you can literally just add a chunk of thin copper tape and wire it to the ground rail.. @@JonathanKayne
About 40 years ago, at my start in radio, I used the same technics ... 😊
@@michaellegg9381Absolutely not, breadboards are pretty much the worst possible choice for any high speed digital or RF projects. They have considerable parasitic capacitance between each row and they don't have anything approaching a ground plane.
- Reminds me of the old;
" *HEATH KIT.* "
days.
I used this technique for a radio project I built many years ago. It worked very well. I drew the grid of lines onto the board, then used a hacksaw blade to cut away the lines leaving isolated squares on the board. Then soldered each component in place on the appropriate squares. And it worked !
@@user-eg3yv3xr7s Back in high school I used a slightly different method. I'd score the board with a utility knife then uses a laminate cutting knife to cut away the copper. They made a nice V cut through the copper as it was pulled.
@@miket2120 ; That's great !! It's always so cool to build a project entirely by hand from scratch and have it work !!
My Heathkit projects still work and look a lot better I do want a new digital oscilloscope but my Heathkit is an old friend
Thank you! I literally asked this question yesterday. This makes a lot of sense. Having a good ground plane is very important for sensitive circuitry.
This is such a good technique for me. I like dead bug construction. Thanks for making this video.
I think it's because of the purpose, ham radio. The ground plane is very important, when it's RF you're working with. Maybe not much of an explanation, but that's my conclusion. I also think it looks awesome 👍
So a ground plane is going from very low resistance to very high resistance without much of a gradient in between. So copper, mirror polish surface , air. And most parts need a pin soldered to it anyway.
Just, these parts are all so huge. Those long Leads have uFarrads of inductivity.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtyou mean nHenry...
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtThe rule of thumb is 1nH/mm, so no, none of these components have microhenries of inductance in their leads.
I’ve seen automotive radios from the 50s like this.
In HS electronics class, we were told to leave maximum copper so the etching bath would last a lot longer.
Wow.
A new way for me to screw things up.....😊
Very cool, very clean. Never seen it before!
In the 1980's and maybe even before that, you could buy ready-made adhesive pads with soldering points. The product was called "Minimount".
Thank you. I was wondering about this for a long time. It's actually kind of simple when you say it like that.
35 years ago there was a magazine "tehnics" every month they would print the layout for different boards and I used to carbon copy on the plate, insulate with tar and burn the rest off with acid, did you know we can build a radio with no power source? 😅
radio with no power source.. wasn't that just a germanium diode on two long wires and a crystal speaker? I think that was for longwave stations?
@@tigerchills2079With a suitable antenna and careful construction you can build a crystal set to receive short wave.
You can also use 10 mega ohm resistors for pads for some circuits.
I like using SMD components on that board you can get with islands in a 0.1 inch raster. You can naively design and build, and it just works up to half a GHz or so, without any regard for stray reacrances.
you can also cut off a piece and make small islands with the cut-off piece. if the board is double-sided, you can even solder the islands on instead of gluing them. only make sure that the solder is only on the bottom, maintaining an isolated plane on top
I see some questions about the stray capacitance of those "MeSquares", so i did a little calculation.
C=Eplison*(A/d), Epsilon is the product of the electric constant times the relativ permittivity of FR4 in this case which is about 4.4. A = Area of overlap of the 2 plates of the capacitor, which in this case is roughly 5x5mm per "MeSquare". d= distance between the plates which is commonly on FR4 boards 1.6mm. Lets put this all into SI metrics -> (8,5*10^-12)*(4,4)*(25*10^-6):(1,6*10^-3) = ~5.8*10^-13 Farads or around 0,6 pF per "MeSquare". Time this with 15 (i counted the last circuit board he showed) and you have about 9pF capacitance on the whole board added. Not a whole lot to be fair, but in very high frequencies (Gigahertz) this might matter.
If you find an error in this calculation please do correct in the comments. ;-)
You can also "punch out" with a tool round copper discs from a copper clad circuit board and then glue those round discs to the board. I forget now the name of the tool but it's cheap and easy to find.
Called a 'hole punch'
pretty neat will keep this in mind instead of perf board if im doing a radio project
that ground plane would really help with shielding ❤
You can use cut-up bits of copper-clad as the "islands" if you want, and a conductive case as the ground plain.
Don't forget to keep the lead lengths short. Oh, nevermind.....
Very interesting. I usually just hand dremmel out the copper
That's cool.
Nice 👍
شكرا جزيلا ❤❤
The benefit of this technique is that it gives a solid ground plane, which helps keep the various RF stages isolated.
subscribed!
thanks for making this video.
i’ve got some simple circuits in mind for an rc boat that i want to prototype past the breadboard stage, and i need them compact and encapsulated for waterproofing. i think this construction method will simplify the process.
What's the purpose of this vs a perforated thru hole tinned pcb?
You can use the entire case as the ground plain.
@@absalomdraconis Ground plane.
You get a solid ground plane and you can minimise component lead lengths (not so much in this video!).
Why do Americans always mispronounce the word "solder"? It's not sodder. It's solder. It rhymes with colder and bolder.
I don’t know. Why do people from the UK add an “f” sound to the pronunciation of Lieutenant?
@lizlilly6756 I have no idea. It's crazy.
"Sodder" is how my Canadian dad said it back in the early '80s. He worked at IBM and got his job with no education because he passed their entrance test due to having electronics as a hobby as a kid and workiing in an electronics shop aa a teenager. He later became head of computer security for the biggest bank in the country and kept an eye on what hackers were capable of overcoming. "Sodder" is therefore the historical pronounciation.
I used drawing pins and aluminium foil on plywood for valve stuff.
Nicely done
Nice, thank you!
Great video thanks 😊
Very nice!
Very cool, thank you
You take a PCB and cut it into squares or even rectangles, without additional costs, it is good for high frequency circuits
i've seen cordwood and deadbug but this is a new one
is there any reason this would be better than ordering boards, other than knowing you built it yourself, and maybe prototyping speed?
Another way to do this is to use a small hole Saw, or a circles ruler and a sharp point metal object (like the tip of a compass, or center punch, or a nail) and remove copper from the surface until you create the pad.
a similar technique is called "breadboarding", you use a wooden (bread)board and push in thumbtacks on strategic positions, then solder components between the copper thumbtacks. it is the foundation for the technical term breadboarding.
I learned building gitar tubeamps. We used to call it Point-to-point wiring. That is similar i take it ?
@@peeniewalli yes, except that instead of thumbnails you wired to the socked connectors of tube sockets. and wired the various other components as resistors, and capacitors directly to them. breadboarding is more from a later age where you used much smaller and lighter components like transistors. also when doing point -to-point wiring often you created intermediate points to solder to with, for example, strips of isolating material that had metal contact points attached to them.
@@martindejong3974 ah. Ok. I think we had combination. A board(made of(?)) about 80mm×200mm were we would punch a row of small metal rings on the top&bottem. There the resistors & elco's placed . The sockets indeed on the body/casing with twined pairs of wire. I think we basically copied 60s amps.
We had our own transformers made to our specification.(hole lot a work to put them stacks of metal to make transformers metal casing, since we only got the coils delivered😁).
Nice experience it was.
I remember we also build some harmonica foot‐pedal tube(pre‐)amps.
Long time ago we used to scratch 10x10mm grid on copper clad board using a hook knife. Now i use Spice simulator for testing, then order PCB in China.
Is it just me or were two of those solder joints completely loose?
That's a really cool and low-tech way to build circuits.
No it isn't. Ever heard of veroboard?
How do you mount a 555 onto this?
@@Bobsmith-yf9oyEver tried to use veroboard to make high frequency RF connections? It's useless. Even the original 555 with it's nasty shoot through problem on the output stage can be problematic without a solid ground and good supply decoupling.
You mount ICs either dead bug (for through hole) or on the small IC adapter PCBs glued down.
Burnt superglue is the worst smell. Burns the eyes.
I am desperately searching for more on this topic as it would be greatly beneficial for my low skilled needs. Link for more plz
Heat is a super glue killer
You have a fibreglass PCB insulating the glue from the heat, and a large area of copper sinking any heat away. It works just fine.
Im sure theres a bit you can buy to make islands.
I'm sure I've seen something very similar at a place I worked.. the old engineer done his own repairs on circuit boards.. or just built his own.. unfortunately I never got the chance to learn from him
So everry node (point of connection) on that circuit diagram would be equivalent to one square then... 🤔🤔🤔
But why would you do that, when you can etch it, drill it, solder it and be done with it?
I don't see the purpose.
Good for prototyping. No need to waste time on etching and where to ground.
Though this isn’t a prototype, but follows a text book.
Keep on going my man you got this🫶
what is the advantage of this vs through hole soldering
You don't have to design and order a PCB, so you can construct circuits immediately. This also gives a better ground plane for HF design as even on a double sided PCB with through hole components the ground plane has to be broken for every connection not going to ground.
Cool.
For those who cannot design a printer circuit board.. this is more expensive than ordering one these days
Why use a double sided copper clad board? It seems you only need a single ground plane.
Isn’t it a wet production process? How do you clad only a single side?
Double sided PCB stock is easier to find than single sided these days, but you are correct that single sided could be used.
How many solder do you want to need?
Yes!
I Just Use Double Sided Copper PCB Material, I Dremmel It , I Mean, I Deremmel The Squares In And Then Clip Them off And Solder To Any projectts I Have So There ARe Two Layers
Wainwright Mini-Mounts
"If your quarry goes to ground, Leave no ground to go to"
Does it not put a kind of capacitor at each of those pads? 2 plate of metal that have a dielectric between them is the exact definition of a capacitor.
Someone ought to build a board of just such capacitors, meaaure the capicatance of the entire board in Farads, then divide by the number of little 7x7 mm squares, and figure out the Farads if each little pad. Are you available to do the research?
Yes, the capacity between layers of pcb is used in modern consumer electronics to match impedance. Design tools help you.
Also known as dead bug construction.
Exceptional=MeC²'s
Boy those crystal leads are longggg
This might be a stupid question: but is it common to have this many components go to ground?
Yes. Look at a random schematic you find in the internet. You will be surprised how many components have a ground pin to them somewhere in the path.
Was that a receiver/transmitter
Sodder or solder?
The L is silent in the US 😬
No stray capacitance?
Heck ya!!!!!
Or use perfboard with two sides
Why not just use the copper board?
Easy way to construct a ground plane for the entire circuit without having to design and construct a multi-layer printed circuit board.
Anybody make audi circuits with this or would they be more prone to interference
Two words: Perf Board.
Breadboards?
Clever
So you basically make your own multilayer pcb😅
I use a much better way than this but it is along the same lines, I use a 8 or 10mm mirror tube drill to just take the surface copper off the board leaving a circular pad to solder components to. Tube drills are hollow in the centre with an abrasive edge. Its easier with a press drill and takes minutes to cut many 'islands'. Use double sided copper clad boards to keep the RF shielding.
The gluing doesn't seem like a good idea, i would cut up a double-sided pcb and use that as pad then surface mount it to the ground plane
I would prefer to cut a one side pcb,...
buy a perf board?!?
❤
Why glue on bits? Why not just cut the copper into square sections and use that? Leave a ring or rail around the rim for power and ground. A scorer would do the trick.
Why not just scratch the squares?
this is the furthest thing from common
It is less job to do a proper PCB design. Then send it to a PCB fab, get it back, and assemble it. With whatever stackup and holes you want. Cheap and fast and you stay within your signal integrity limits and EMC limits...
Can I get a 4 layer PCB, where the inner layers are close to each other and supply power? Then I want an air channel spacer layer for low k and a again a thin outer layer to carry the traces.
What is "sodder?"
American Solder
Проект манхэттэн начало
Why not cut grid lines in the copper clad board instead?
The continuous copper layer acts as a ground plane for all of the grounds in the project as well as an RF ground plane that keeps noise suppressed.
@@BillRehbockit can become part of a Faraday cage when solder a dome of sheet metal of this all. Open up a commodore C64 to see an example.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt Agreed. (I worked for Jack and Sam, btw :-) The point of this style is for quick circuit prototyping and keeping noise suppressed. Nowadays, if you want a quick PCB, desktop CNC is an option, too, but the style depicted by the OP is a cool old-school technique that's quick and reliable. ... though maybe not so applicable to SMD components ;-)
Took me a second to realize what the name meant
Waist of double sided copper bords. He could glue that pads on any 1-1.5 mm thick plastic sheet.
But then you lose the ground plane.
NAR REAL NAME IS DEAD BUG
That's a different thing. Like an IC upside down and components soldered either directly to or with wiring.
Interesting. Manhattan because it’s got skyscrapers?
I suppose you wouldn’t need the solder squares technically, if you were really good at wrapping leads.
It's because it's built on a grid, like Manhattan.
I have used "dots" instead of squares. I have extra double sided and single sided board, I just use a heavy duty hole punch to punch out a bunch of pads. Only thing is if your working on something that is picky, the circuit board pads will have a small capacitance to ground, but most time its nothing to worry about.
Nah, just drill circular islands or just straight up use a dremmel tool to create your islands and thats it, much better
Seems like too much work to me. My preferred method is a THT board.
I'm using both techniques. THT for low frequency and the shown for HF.
[👍]
Why not use perf board?
That was my question, too. And honestly, for about a 100 snackers, I can have 10 custom boards made and shipped to me within just a couple of weeks. If I am worried a part of my design is bad, I can design the board so that everything gets connected together a little bit at a time. And solder paste in a 30 dollar toaster oven is awesome. Instant board.
Just install jumper pads/via everywhere you want the circuits disconnected until you are sure each part works as expected. I typically isolate the power supply so it can be built and tested first, with nothing else connected except a dummy resistive load. Then the CPU/MPU is isolated from the peripherals so that dummy test code can toggle all the pins. Then the analog inputs and outputs are finally installed. After that, cameras, RF amps, Bluetooth, wifi, and so on, are each wired up.
Perfboard is useless for high frequency designs, you have no ground plane.
If I check my dictionary, the word is spelled "solder" and has an "l" before the "d". So, why do I hear people from the USA say "sodder"? No L! Strange!
I'm an Amateur Radio person, from VK1.
Like leftenant (lieutenant)?
Why to waste a dubble side PCB for this technique?
If it's all you have. Or you could build two sided. It's a tiny amount of copper. Also might provide more shielding or other purpose
I don't see the advantage to this considering pre drilled prototype boards are now cheap and I would imagine faster than this. I would expect it to be easier to solder.