Introduction
It was time
to look back and see what really has happened. Yes, I have managed to complete
the assembly of the electronics kit for the uTracer 3+. This was by far the
most complex electronics project I ever endeavored, and the results were phenomenal
at least in my quite subjective view.
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| Printed Circuit Board of uTracer 3. This image is not my own creation, rather than taken from the cover of the instruction manual |
The time it
took was only three days and thanks to the thorough and systematic instructions
that came with the kit I had no major problems in any steps of the assembly.
The only time I needed to revisit an assembly step was when I accidentally dropped
the PCB on the floor and one of the buck converter inductors broke loose.
The uTracer
was quickly taken in test use in its skeleton form without any RFI suppression
beads and having just a single noval tube socket with flying leads attached to
the terminals. I was so anxious to verify the operation of the kit that in a
few days I had tested all suitable tubes in my rather limited inventory.
I had been
dreaming of many possible ways of finishing the project with a beautiful case
and clever switching hardware for the different tube socket scenarios. As days
went by, I had time to evaluate the options and I grew more and more fond of
those with minimalistic wiring and switching solutions.
I have
anticipated that I need maximum versatility, so that any possible tube
configurations could be tested without any major rebuild. Therefore, I wanted
to have a docking input connector, where I could plug in practically any kind
of tube socket. I do not need to have more than one set on input leads, because
the wiring changes can be made on the tube socket adapter. I little bit of
manual labor never hurts one.
I had envisioned
a box with a clean exterior, a docking bay for the tube sockets and the
necessary cables, input power and USB. First, I thought to have the laptop
supply external, but since there was no shortage of space, I ended up incorporating
the 19 V supply in the case.
My eyes
were soon tuned to spot any promising case candidates and when I was on one of
my regular rounds in the hardware stores, I found a nice tool case in the local
Bauhaus store. It looked to be just the right size, so it quickly became the
base of my project design. That particular case was available in red or blue
color and I decided to use the red one to have kind of surprise effect due to
the contrast between the colorful exterior and clean business façade.
Additional parts of this project are described on other pages of this blog. See the menu on the right.
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