BlueClone - The Blue Room's Own Comms System

[richardash1981]

Yeah, my thinking too. Though many posts with documents and pictures in the thread has broken links, but trying to figure the values out.

Except for the footprints, how sensitive is the voltage rating for the capacitors? The PSU schematic has some references for voltage, but the Beltpack schematic only mentions the capacitance..

 

A higher voltage rating capacitor will work fine, but cost more and may be larger (and so not fit the PCB). A lower voltage rating than the circuit operates at will very rapidly fail in use.

Normally old CPC numbers still go through to the "no longer stocked" part so you can get hold of the details, even if you can't buy them? Or at least a manufacturer's part number which can be looked up?

[Cberg88]

Haven’t looked extremely well, but most of the CPC numbers go to nothing unfortunately, may have gotten a result on one or a couple of searches, that’s it unfortunately.

[sandall]

If you know the specs of the parts you need, rather than just part-numbers, have a look at Cricklewood Electronics (cricklewoodelectronics.com). They now specialise in CCTV, but still keep a good stock of basic components. I've used them on & off for well over 40 years when I need a few capacitors, resistors or transistors & can't be bothered to make up a CPC order. They post to Europe.

[Cberg88]

If you know the specs of the parts you need, rather than just part-numbers, have a look at Cricklewood Electronics (cricklewoodelectronics.com). They now specialise in CCTV, but still keep a good stock of basic components. I've used them on & off for well over 40 years when I need a few capacitors, resistors or transistors & can't be bothered to make up a CPC order. They post to Europe.

 

Thank you! I will look them up!

Though, I first have to dig into all components to see if I can find which is needed..

the parts list only mentions the capacitance for the caps for example, so need to up some more info I think..

 

There seems to be some that have linked to other spreadsheets in the thread, but most links are broken (some are dating back to 2014)

[themadhippy]

Whilst cricklwood are great if you can just pop inthe £3 shipping on orders less than £30 makes them less competitive when farnell do free shipping on orders over £20.00 and rs seems to be free whatever you buy.Another worth a look is arrow,terrible website ,but they seem to have free P+P if you click the right hoops.

[alistermorton]

I've used Rapid in the past too - not sure how good their component coverage is these days, though.

[callumb]

https://www.clockwor...om/BOM-0.7.xlsx This is from someone else on this thread but cannot remember who it was! (Sorry) It has the Farnell part numbers on it :)

[Cberg88]

https://www.clockwor...om/BOM-0.7.xlsx This is from someone else on this thread but cannot remember who it was! (Sorry) It has the Farnell part numbers on it :)

 

Thank you! That helps a lot! :)

And thank you to the author of the document!

 

 

A quick question that came to mind, if anyone knows the question too:

 

The resistors does not mention any other value than the resistance, what effect should they handle? is 1/4W enough?

And are there any of them that needs tighter tolerance that 5%?

 

Thank you in advance!

/Christopher

[Brian]

The resistors does not mention any other value than the resistance, what effect should they handle? is 1/4W enough?

And are there any of them that needs tighter tolerance that 5%?

 

I would go for 1% 250mW metal film, they aren't expensive.

[sandall]

I would go for 1% 250mW metal film

Which is what the source-lists suggest.

[Cberg88]

The resistors does not mention any other value than the resistance, what effect should they handle? is 1/4W enough?

And are there any of them that needs tighter tolerance that 5%?

 

I would go for 1% 250mW metal film, they aren't expensive.

I would go for 1% 250mW metal film

Which is what the source-lists suggest.

 

 

Thank you!

 

I missed that info in the source-list! ??‍♂️

[callumb]

The LED is the right way round. It lights up very very dimly when you (accidentally) touch the pins.

 

When the call button is pressed it does call the other packs so that part works.

 

So in follow up to this it was a break in the track from the LED to the transistor caused by my gorilla like soldering.

[boatman]

Brian and I have rationalised the resistor values so that now 9 different values are used rather than 21 in version 1.3. I have also redone the PCB to change C22 from 100nF to 47uF. This is the de-bounce capacitor for the call button and some builders were finding the 100nF was far too small. 47uF should be adequate. It is possible to fit a 47uF capacitor in the C22 position on version 1.3 but the silk screen marking is less clear.

 

PLEASE NOTE that these changes are all untested but we would welcome a guineapig builder to test them for us.

 

The link to the zip file containing all the changes is HERE.

Edited April 30, 2020 by boatman

[dmxlights]

Boatman,

 

I have one or 2 boards to still build and I mite have enough resistors to do it with the 9 values that you have in v1.4 I will dig it out later and I will take a look. I know I may be missing some parts like the XLRs sockets and a few other things but as I said I will take a look to see what I have.

I have also been asked by a friend who is thinking of building some but he was asking me would these work on 12v as he sometimes uses some of the tecpro packs on a 12v battery

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by dmxlights

[Brian]

Hi Tony,

 

12V operation shouldn't be a problem.

 

The 5534 mic amp will run down to 6V, the 072s in the line driver/hybrid are good down to 10V, and the 0372 headphone driver, remarkably, looks like it will run down to 4V.

 

The amount of drive available to the headphones will of course be reduced, but, if Tecpro packs work OK on 12V then so should Bluecom. One of our design goals was to be as compatible as possible. However, it'll be worth trying a couple on 12V before you rush off and build several hundred of them!