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Build your own Preamp – FABModules – FiveFish Audio Building Blocks for DIY Projects Blog ArticlesBuild. Learn. Make Audio Gear...for Students, Makers, Hobbyists and Professionals |
This week, we received the following prototype boards:
FAB1215 – Power Supply Module
FAB9001 – Cable to FAB Adapter
FAB3110 – Output Transformer Module (for Cinemag, EA, Crimson Audio)
FAB4312 – Non-Inverting Amplifier Module (with discrete opamp option)
DC-1248 Rev.B – 12Volts to 48Volts DC-DC converter
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Here are some photos showing the FAB1215 Power Supply Module powering some FAB modules via a ribbon cable.
Here’s a photo of our FAB1215 Power Supply Module, outfitted with our DC-1248 (+48V converter module).
I finally got the chance to test the 48V power supply by hooking up our FAB2010 XLR Input Module, FAB2110 Input Transformer Module, and FAB3010 XLR Output Module, using them as a pass-through before going into an API 512C preamp. But instead of turning on Phantom Power on the API preamp, I used the 48V source on our FAB module.
Yesterday, we got the boards back from the PCB fab house. Today, I built the FAB1215 prototype and tested it. Now, we have a power supply to power all our FAB modules. Yay!
This convenient power supply is powered by a simple 12VDC power adapter (wall wart). The one I’m using is rated 400mA and it’s the only one I can scrounge around… but I’d recommend a 1Amp power adapter so you have plenty of power to spare.
The +/-15Volts is generated by an off-the-shelf part, and the +48Volts for phantom power is generated by our DC-1248 Module (12VDC to 48VDC converter).
The FAB1215 has (1) DC jack to accept the 12Volts input, and (2) IDC headers that route +/-15Volts, and +48Volts so you can power (2) channels of your project. The +/-15V is rated up to 190mA, and the 48Volts is rated up to 60mA (this 60mA figure may change once I finalized on the component values and complete testing). You simply hookup power using 10-pin ribbon cables to your FABs. It’s that easy.
One of the FAB boards I submitted looked great on Eagle screen. But when I got my “real” boards back, I see that silkscreen text was too large, and overlapped on some of the components. What happened?
It seems I forgot to change the text type to “vector” from “proportional”. So it looked great and fits in the space alloted when viewing my board in Eagle. If I had viewed my gerber files, I would have discovered the problem.
So began the quest to find a Gerber Viewer for OSX… which I discovered was difficult. I spent too much time chasing dead end leads. Of course, #1 priority was the price….. FREE.