Keeping up with component changes is always a challenge for anyone designing electronics and recently I've had to implement tweaks to some of my PCBs. Today however, I'm delighted to announce the arrival of my latest January 2023 version PCBs! 🙂
The main difference to all my power supply boards, is the change of the 5V AC / DC converter. If you've already bought an Aurora or Super Nova, please don't panic. Vigortronix brought out a replacement for the model I originally used but I can't see any difference to the specification.
The keen-eyed will also note the inclusion of the Union Jack. All my stuff is built in the United Kingdom and I just felt obliged to reinforce the point.
Amongst my latest January 2023 version PCBs are my lovely Nebula boards but I'm still waiting for them to turn up. 🙁
Nothing lasts for ever and electronic component distributors and indeed manufacturers, often discontinue or release revised versions of components. Apart from being really annoying, this isn't often a big deal.
On occasion however, a component change or even a long-term shortage, requires a substitute to be used which may have the same electronic specification as the original but will have a different physical format. This in turn, will require the respective PCB to be redesigned, which involves a lot of work, additional expense in getting a whole bunch of revised PCBs made up and potentially disposing (yes, throwing away) any previous PCBs.
This recently happened with Aurora. The 5V shunt voltage reference that I use, has become very difficult to source in TO-92 format. I can get it with 1% tolerance but the original device was specified with a tolerance of 0.1% and I really don't want to compromise on that. Hence, I decided to redesign Aurora Board A to take both the original TO-92 package as well as the new SOT-23 device. Apart from the physical format, the two devices are the same.
UPDATE - 1st May 2023
So the 5V 0.1% shunt voltage reference in TO-92 package, is now back in stock everywhere. GREAT!!!! 😀 It's so much easier to work with and reduces assembly time!