Suitability of Stripboard

[little eddy]

I am considering making a new power supply for my amp. I was originally thinking about using a tag board but using a stripboard would be much easier and efficient.

Can stripboard be used for this smoothing/reservoir cap application with an estimated peak voltage of 460V and steady state current of circa 170mA? I'm going to be using a GZ34 rectifier so there shouldn't be a massive inrush with my first cap of a Pi filter being 23.5uF. Using PSUD, it says the peak C1 current is 830mA with peak to peak current of 1.0A (which I guess is called the 'ripple current').

I do not intend to use adjacent strips and usually remove any unwanted strips from the board.

Little Eddy.

[Greg.]

Once you've set up your circuit links on a tag board, surely this is the most versatile option. You can alter and change components to your hearts content. A strip board will have a limited revisiting life. TB takes up more room I acknowledge, but as you're talking PSU I suspect certain components will be large anyway. My choice would be tag board.

[little eddy]

Greg,

From your reply then I would take it that a stripboard is suitable for use with the voltages and current I mentioned.

I was only going to use the stripboard for the caps and resistors associated with the Pi filter and given the fact that hopefully people will have advised me regarding my suggested componemt values, I don't see much risk that this would need changing significantly other than maybe trying more expensive electrolytic capacitors. One of my main aims with the build is to make it as neat as possible thus minimising conductor and signal path lengths. In this instance the stripboard is much more efficient than the tag board approach that I initially considered.

I do intend to use tag boards for the amplifier stages where I expect to experiment values and types of components.

Is this a reasonable approach?

[Greg.]

Hi Eddy (I know that's not your real name but can't remember after we met (sorry),

You've put me on the spot. Ever since I started this game I've done very little with stripboard and then only battery powered stuff etc. The short answer is I can't answer you question on stripboard rating. I've done a search but can't find any spec sheets that would help. My reply was based on the practicality aspect only.

Hopefully someone more informed will chip in.

Best wishes,

Greg

[JerryT]

I thought modern strip board was really designed for low current and low voltage applications. I built a solid state PSU using strip board for a JLH tranny amp that was providing an 80 volts at 1 amp, 40 volts at 0.25 amps and 25 volts at 0.20 amps (from memory).

The lower voltage and current draw outputs were fine, but the 'high' voltage high current section kept throwing faults. As soon as the current draw increased the o/p voltage dropped ( voltage drop along the strip). Two sets of diodes quit as though short circuited. And the whole thing buzzed.

A point to point remake of the 80 volt element of the supply removed the problems.

So my answer is no.

As usual someone else may have a strip board EHT energising electrostatic speakers or driving an arc welding kit. I'd love to know how they do it.

Jerry

[alnewall]

I steer clear of stripboard at these volts, because, as Greg says its hard to find info.
Did find this though.

http://www.verotl.com/sites/verotl.c...ity_boards.pdf

[Richard]

Yes the tracks and spacing on stripboard are a bit small and fragile. Consider the plain holed SRPB matrix board such as the 0.1" hole spacing boards from Maplin (search matrix board). I've used that for hardwiring components on plenty of times including the 500v bridge rect for Kit88 psu. I didn't check any voltage specs though so it's your decision .

Rich

[pre65]

When i was thinking of using matrix board for my 845 power supply () the perceived wisdom was not to go over 200v !!

So i then made up a circuit board from PTFE sheet (e-bay) and used turret tags (Bluebell) to be safe at 950v.

[Richard]

I had a look round and the dielectric strength,

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_12/8.html

of srbp is around 740V/mil (thousandth of an inch),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FR-2

which would put it at 740 on the chart on the first link. (In metric, around 29KV/mm.)

I found one manufacturer's product example giving 11KV for 1.6mm thickness,

http://millbornsrbptubes.com/asp/products.htm

and no doubt they would err on the side of caution.

Bearing in mind that "thickness" would be "distance" between the legs of components I personally don't think there would be a problem at our voltages but DYOR of course .

I also remember something about srbp being better than glassfibre board due to trapped moisture or somesuch, anyone remember?

Rich

[pre65]

From my previous searches i found PTFE was 55 Kv per mm

I have used Delrin for electrical insulation in the past,and found out (thanks Darren) that the white Delrin is a better insulator than the black Delrin.

The black has carbon particles in the mix.Still safe for mains voltages and above.

Thing to remember is that above 600v many components are no longer suitable (resistors,caps etc)