Sweet, I look forward to trying it out.
Sweet, I look forward to trying it out.
Hi Ace,
first of all, thanks to you and villahed94 for this (another) amazing project, it's awesome!
Secondly, I'd like to make my own PCB design, for me and my friends.
Can I use your new schematics, without (obviously) making any changes?
If yes, can I use tantalum capacitors?
Or is it better the electrolytic ones?
Thanks for all! :)
I am personally unfamiliar with tantalums, so all I can say is experiment. I'm not fond of them due to their tendencies to short out when they fail (had an Intel Socket 4 motherboard with a shorted tantalum on its -12V rail), but I really don't know how they would affect the sound.
Thanks for the reply.
I decided to use electrolytic capacitors.
This is my prototype Mini board, I hope you like it:
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/qT8V05gy
https://644db4de3505c40a0444-327723b...a1c09bc252.png
May I suggest adding an extra 10uF capacitor for 5V filtering? Just to be safe, I prefer to add at least one electrolytic capacitor to any add-on boards for a console.
I switched to 2x tantalum capacitors for decoupling 5V and non-inverting input lines, because there wasn't enough space for another electrolytic cap.
Here's the result:
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/cLhLtWV3
https://644db4de3505c40a0444-327723b...4c7c8915b2.png
Can't say I'm too thrilled about the use of tantalums for power filtering, particularly due to their tendency to short out when they fail. What I can suggest is to use a smaller footprint for your 220uF output capacitors (those seriously look oversized) and replace the twin tantalums with a single small electrolytic 10uF capacitor.
Hey Ace, mind if I design a PCB to sell as a DIY kit through Console5?
Under the condition that you do not alter the circuit without my consent, you can make some DIY kits to sell. I wanted to do that myself, but the PCBs I kept coming up with were too big for my liking.
Did you think of reducing PCB size by re-purposing existing components on the mainboard?
Also there's a lot of wasted space. Traces could be cut and new components be places there.
So I got my prototypes in and the sound is great but I need to record some audio files with ceramic and tantalum and electrolytics so I can compare what can best be substituted and with what. Do you guys have any good games that have great tracks to test the audio on? I've used Contra Hard Corps and Gunstar Heroes but I'm open to suggestions and maybe a particular track that I can test?
Perhaps Streets of Rage 2? I recommend testing with bass-heavy games, especially if you want to hear the difference between various different output capacitor values.