Good afternoon all new printed circuit boards from jlc pcb these are my evse circuit boards, they're quite nicely packed. So let's get them open. So this board will replace this board, which was in the evse that i bought. Electric vehicle supply equipment right, get the shrink wrap off and they appear to be wrapped individually and that's because they do have a very small number of surface mount components on them, which i had put on by the smt assembly service.

Of course, as i would so. I had five of these made just because that's kind of the minimum quantity. I only need one for the moment, so i think what i'll do to start with is just see if a few basic items fit on here. So, let's start with the fuse holder.

Now this is the one i did in my recent post bag, video, the blx dash a fuse holder, but there's actually another one in here, which is this because i recently put an order into cpc funnel and i got some of these fuse holders, which appear to Be very similar and have a similar footprint, so let's try them both and yes, the blx dash a1 fits rather nicely in there. Here are my tracks, which i'm going to run tin, copper wire along to enhance the current carrying capability of these. This is live up here. It goes through the relay to live going out to the car.

This is live coming in from maine's. This is neutral down. Here also goes to another relay out to the car um and the fuse goes between live and the live side of my power supply, which sits there, which is the 12 volt power supply from mains down to 12 volts dc. So that fits fine and it's got um these little wiggly legs to make it sit in there.

This one hasn't got wiggly legs, but it looks like the pitch is going to be the same. Yes, that's absolutely fine, it doesn't stay in that'll fall out, but yeah. So both of those fit now i also have some relays. I don't have the hong far relays yet, but at cpc i found these omron relays, which also have these spade terminals on the top.

So, let's get these out very nice shiny, copper, color on these top spade terminals, so this must have become a popular relay size because the footprint looks identical. Let's give that a try, oh yes, that fits rather well in there. So yes, the omron, whatever that relay is fits in here, but also um. I used the footprint from the hong far so that must be a standard layout.

So the two relays will sit in here now, i'm not entirely sure um, whether i'm going to be able to use these relays because they're, probably too tall for the box that i've got but they'll go in like that. Nonetheless, very nice, also from cpc. I bought these now. These are these barrier terminal strips.

I think these are rated at 30 amps they're quite uh high current, but they only had the six way they listed four way, six way and more ways than that, but they only actually had these two in stock. So i bought the entire stock of barrier terminal strips, which is just these two, so what i'm planning to do is actually saw these down to the three-way that i need which goes at this end and the four-way that i need there now. I have also put these alternative footprints on here for 8.5 millimeter pitch spacing barrier terminal strips these are 9.5 millimeter pitch. Spacing, let's see if they fit that's, not going to be an exact um sort of fit, because i've got two extra ways there, but yeah.

That does appear to fit across the pitch of there, so that also looks quite promising. I was playing with one of these the other day. I think it's this one and i dug out this um end piece because i have to take some of these out and uh saw this down for my four-way and my three-way, which are going to be made from two six ways. Let's have a look at the little insert on there, so i'll take the screw out first and then i'll, try and dig out.

I have dug this out actually, which is why it's not sitting completely flat in there, but you've got to sort of lever it out from both sides. Well i'll work on that for a moment and there it is, and you can see how it works. It's just a single piece: construction, this, these barrow terminal strips, have the pins running down the center, so there's a little offset on there and then the shape of this has these barbs, which sit in the plastic molding and hold this in place that doesn't fall out. So yeah it should be relatively easy to pull a couple of these out, get a saw in there saw it off, and then i've got my four-way and my three-way.

Incidentally, if you saw these cuts here um, i wasn't going to put cuts on because i managed to keep my spacings between all the live and even the neutral lines and everything else sort of in in excess of about five millimeters for creepage and uh. That should be adequate, but i right at the last minutes. I thought i'll just put a couple of these cuts in because all you do is you place a track and then you right click it and you say, convert to board cut out. So i put them in they're, probably not very appropriate.

They are around the live terminals of this relay, but i just wanted to see what they look like and they look like that holes in the board. What are the surface mount components? Well very little. Actually, um anti-back emf diodes for each of the two relays. There's a footprint for a capacitor there, which prevents the relays chattering a couple of um npn transistors to act as drivers for these two relays.

I hope they're man enough for the job they should be um and some resistors there on the basis of these two transistors and another resistor, which pulls up to 12 volts plus 12 volts. So when i apply 12 volts to this board, i'll, probably just poke it. Well, i might actually do it on here, because i've put some run outs here for 12, but this is my prototyping area for cmos logic, chips and comparators, which are all on a 0.1 inch pitch matrix. So i'll put 12 volts in here, not volts in here, and the relay should pull in immediately because these two base resistors are then pulled up through a 10k to plus 12 volts.

So they should turn on. And then it's the job of whatever's connected to this line, which runs across here through these pads, and i think, through this one yeah relays there. It is all these holes here are linked on the bottom, and so i can drive the relays through whichever pad happens, to be nearest to my prototype, circuitry um. When you pull that down, of course, then these relays will turn off that's theory anyway.

Now one other thing: i've got: is this little power supply, so this is 240 volts in actually probably a range of voltages in and it's 12 volts at 0.25 amps, so quarter of an amp, that's 3 watts out, and although the data sheet for this said it Would be nice if you had a common mode choke and a class x, capacitor and a marv, and all that stuff i haven't bothered. Thank you to the people who, in the comments said uh, don't worry, it'll still work and i've just put that straight across the mains, with the fuse. So let's just see whether that fits in its footprint and it does so. That's pretty good i'll.

Probably leave this off initially and just provide 12 volts to this board through some other means just for testing the relays and building the initial circuitry. That runs off 12 volts, but that all looks good now, there's one other thing i bought from ebay, which are these and they are low profile, um they're called chicken claw or something i think i can't quite remember the name but they're the connectors that will fit On here - and i wanted the lowest profile ones that you could get now, these, i think, would have to be soldered. They do come with these little caps, so i think these would have to be soldered. Doesn't look like you could successfully crimp that in any useful way, so i'll, probably just squeeze these closed solder wires on and then see whether the height of all this fits in that box, but i very much doubt it now.

The next issue is: will this board fit in the original box, which is here, i'm obviously not going to connect up to the led and tft display in this unit? I'm not going to use that. So that's all the uh gubbins that i'm not going to use they're covered by this. So all i'm really checking here is that i've got my hole, spacings correct. Let's have a look, so these are the screws that go in and hold the pcb in place.

So, let's put a couple of those in the distance between these holes. Just didn't appear to be a standard value, but it's quite hard measuring these, even if you've got calipers like these, it's actually quite difficult to get these points in the centers of the holes and get a meaningful reading. So i just kind of winged it um and i rounded these numbers up to numbers that seemed more sensible than the ones i measured. It doesn't really matter too much and if there's um an issue, i can just file these holes out a little bit.

But let's see if this thing fits well, the first thing is there isn't a very loose fit of that screw in there it's a bit of an interference fit. So i might just file these out a little bit um, in which case then it will fit, because the problem is with these being tight in the pcb. I can't feel my way into the threads in here and i don't want to cross thread these because that just rips all the plastic out, so let's get these loose and then i can feel my way into these threads. Yes, if i make a mark two of this board - which i might i'll definitely make these bigger - i don't remember actually measuring this at all.

I think i just eyeballed it and thought four mil that sounds about right. Okay, well, i've um filed these out, probably to about five mil now, and i think five mil probably would have been better yeah. My last round numbers i think i did 70 mil across there. The board itself is 80 mil they're slightly out, but um.

If i file these out so they're a good diameter, this will fit fine, so not too concerned about this, but i yes should have made those a bit bigger yeah. So the board's in now these two cables i'll probably disconnect at the other end because they're just going to get in my way and as i say, i'm not using them um, i slightly rearrange the order of these three wires. I put protective earth in the middle between live at the top and neutral at the bottom. I think in the other board it's different yeah pe is on the end and they've got live and neutral.

Bunched together didn't particularly like that, so i've moved pe to the middle, but those are in a pretty good place. These wires do sit on top of my prototyping area, but yes, i've come to the conclusion that this box is not actually ideal because laying this board out you've got mains coming in one end: mains coming out the other relays, either side and then you're having to Try and fit all your low voltage stuff in the middle of all this mains. I think it'd be far better if the cables both came in from one side mains was all at the bottom and low voltage stuff was all at the top, so i may just put this evse back together again with its original board. After i've done all my experiments, this won't be for a while i'll carry on with this for a while and sort of come up with a rearranged design.

But for the moment, of course, i'm going to use these prototyping boards um and yes i'll - be building the cmos logic and the comparators circuitry and transistors and bits and pieces good, old-fashioned electronics in this prototyping area to get my very primitive version, one evse to actually Function so, like i say, these wires are a little bit in my way. I'm just gon na ease these plugs out of their sockets, not really meant to pull on the wires. Are you, but it's so difficult to pull on the plug itself, and perhaps it isn't there? We are they're out of the way so happy with my pcbs. I am i've widened these holes sufficiently now that there's a bit of play in this pcb.

So that's good. So i can find the threads in these because they're just plastic threads, they don't have proper inserts and these are just uh screws, but that fits fine. So i think that's about all i'm going to do now. The next thing i'm going to do is i'm going to put the relays in, but i only have these at the moment and as i say, i think these are too high.

In fact, i could just check that. Yes, i've got a feeling, that's going to be too high. Let's get the lid yeah. I don't think that it's going to go on there with those things sticking up at that height.

So it's a nice idea having these relays with the spade connectors on the top, but i think i'm going to have to use the other relays and they don't they haven't turned up yet. But the relays will go in i'll, put 12 volts on this, and the relay should then immediately pull in because the driver transistors have their bases. Um pulled up to 12 volts through a resistor, so that'll be the first thing i do. Then i might start building some clock circuitry here using the cmos cd4060.

I've got the crystals. I've got the capacitors. I've got most of the parts just waiting for the relays. That's what's holding me up now so, like i say happy with my evse printed circuit boards, um this project really has to be up running by spring, because the whole point of this is that it's um going to eventually track the solar output from the solar panels.

On my roof and that's all going to start kicking in fairly soon really once we pass the um, what is it the uh equinox in march, but anyway, for this video uh happy with these boards? That's it for now so cheerio.