Just out of curiosity, what would be the typical cost of building a Hedgehog? - I'm just curious to know if it would come in low enough to inspire me to consider a build in the future, or if the cost would care me witless for fear of ruining an expensive piece of kit.
Based on buying from Farnell for the most part, with FPGA an ebay buy from China I would say between £120-140
Stephen
SWMBO has just taken delivery!
Quality of the boards appears to be excellent. My poor phone photo does not do justice at all.
Boards have cost me the princely sum of £6.53 ea.
Yours for that and the cost of postage (which will be first class letter at 67p, except Jac who's in Holland, and it'll be £1.55 Royal Mail international standard)
First refusal:
mfd70
Jac Janssen
PYE625
Norman-Raeburn
On the bench:
Jayceebee
PM me some details, payment by paypal only... I'll send the details.
Hi.
That is really brilliant, I'm not sure as yet if I'll make an order at this time. Our inbuilt oven blew the Element for the forth time in ten years on Tuesday so as I'm rather miffed at fitting another one we have bit the bullet and bought a new oven, I'll be fitting it myself but that's a few hundred quid out I didn't bargain for.
Cheers,
Trevor.
MM0KJJ. RSGB, GQRP, WACRAL, K&LARC. Member
I've been doing a bit of shopping around for the semiconductors required, the best prices for low quantities seems to be various Chineese suppliers on ebay. I estimate £30 for all semis except 7805 and 1n4001 which I have in stock. The modulator ICs are now obsolete, but there seems to still be quantities in stock.
It looks like the passives are cheaper in the various kits, also offered by Chineese suppliers on ebay rather than individual values.
I'm inclined to use the front panel layout, but fit the completed unit into a 1u rack mount with a mains PSU but I'll concentrate on building it first !
PS. Anyone who uses RS may be interested in a 9% cashback offer with topcashback I don't know if it is limited, but worthwhile if you're placing a large RS order.
I've been doing a bit of shopping around for the semiconductors required, the best prices for low quantities seems to be various Chineese suppliers on ebay. I estimate £30 for all semis except 7805 and 1n4001 which I have in stock. The modulator ICs are now obsolete, but there seems to still be quantities in stock.
It looks like the passives are cheaper in the various kits, also offered by Chineese suppliers on ebay rather than individual values.
I'm inclined to use the front panel layout, but fit the completed unit into a 1u rack mount with a mains PSU but I'll concentrate on building it first !
PS. Anyone who uses RS may be interested in a 9% cashback offer with topcashback I don't know if it is limited, but worthwhile if you're placing a large RS order.
That's a big saving over using RS/Farnell/CPC, although I've been caught with sub-standard resistors and many fake semi-conductors on eBay before. I've had to go the chinese route with the modulators, as Mark says, sourcing mine from Ali-Express.
Here's the state of play as of Friday afternoon. All the smd semi's are down, less the modulators as they haven't turned up yet. All the resistors and most of the caps are down. Board's a bit sticky with flux !
Hi Doz
I like your PCB clamp simple and effective.Frank
Ah, the universal clamp! Cheap, disposable, fits a lot of items! Great for holding down various plugs during soldering too. Don't get it too warm!
I would be wary of getting semiconductors from China. I know of two TVP5150 video decoders that were got from different sources from China that were duff. However I had good luck with the modulator chips. I have used over 20 of them and out of that two were duff.
Frank
@FRANK.C @frank-c What package do you use for schematics/layout?
Mod note: @doz Andy I've corrected your mention to Frank as it was incorrectly formatted (see above). To use the mention feature you must type it as seen, in other words what is in the brackets below the members username, not the actual username. A successful mention once the post is saved will appear as a link and e-mail the mentioned member to look at the post.
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Hi Doz
I use TinyCAD for the schematic. Design Spark PCB for the PCB and an edited version of the silkscreen for the component layout.
Frank
I would be wary of getting semiconductors from China. I know of two TVP5150 video decoders that were got from different sources from China that were duff. However I had good luck with the modulator chips. I have used over 20 of them and out of that two were duff.
Frank
Well that's depressing, I've just ordered the silicon all from China. Now I'm dogged with the thought I'll never get it working for intermittent and obscure faults with ICs.
I can confirm these modulators by Freescale are 100 % and they only took 6 days to arrive
Well hopefully that means that perhaps the modulator section could be salvaged. Though I have my doubts about the FPGA dev board now, it was only £13 with a programmer, I expect it's a counterfeit, probably made of paper or something.
How do the Chinese get away with selling all this second rate rubbish ?
I'll be sure to leave -ve feedback for everything I receive and try for refunds as long as they don't need their worthless rubbish to be returned.
Hi mfd70
I wouldn't be overly concerned. All FPGA boards that I used were sourced from China, from different suppliers and as far as I know that type of development board is only made in China. When I was buying them I always went for the cheapest price. I have used over 10 of them and out of that lot only 1 was faulty. At the price they are I don't think that is bad.
The modulators again which I got from different suppliers were generally OK. With just 2 duds out of 20. There was only ever one dud in each lot with the rest OK. Lately I tried a TVP5150 which I got from china it was a dud. There was five in total in the lot. I haven't tried any of the remaining four. A good TVP5150 is important as everything else is dependent on the clock it produces.
If you do run into trouble just let us know the trouble you are having and I am sure we will get to the bottom of it. As long as you have a scope they aren't too difficult to troubleshoot.
Frank
Who was it that asked me about the hex switch? Can't find the message .. PM me again!
My modulators arrived yesterday, and my Cyclone board has arrived... not long now!
Hi Doz, it was me asking about the hex switch. I decided to also just get a one off from Poland which arrived today after ordering on Monday !
What's amazing is the FPGA board that I ordered on Saturday arrived today, its now all programmed up and my second hedgehog is running well albeit without the yellow RCA connectors that are due in the next 5 days, your welcome to some when they arrive.
If I had all the parts I recon I could build them in 1 -2 hours
