50W QRP Amplifier - 3D Printed Case Design and Livestream
Published August 28, 2018
With the 50W QRP amplifier project coming along nicely, I felt it was time to start thinking about a reproducible case for the project. And for custom, reproducible cases, 3D printing is my current tool of choice.
I ended up designing the case on a YouTube Livestream on Saturday night, to which a few great colleagues stopped by to ask questions and offer advice. The full video is below.
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The case is in two parts - a box with standoffs for the PCB and holes for connectors, and a lid with labels. The standoffs and the attachment holes for the lid are meant to connect with M3 threaded-inserts and be held down with M3 machine screws.
This was my first time using Fusion 360's Eagle Sync function - since Eagle PCB design software was acquired by AutoDesk in 2016, it makes sense that they've been working to integrate PCB design workflows into their other products. The sync was fair straightforward - open Fusion360, select Eagle Sync, select your board file in Eagle, and after a minute or two of importing, up pops your PCB in Fusion360. Neat! I'm still struggling with how to handle board cutouts in eagle, and I'm not sure how well they'll be supported in Fusion, but that's a project for another day.
Here's the final design as it turned out in Fusion360:
The PowerPole model was provided by Chris Wych, a theatrical propmaster who's done some really interesting work with Fusion360, including using it to model some 2d-printable geodesic designs which then folded up into geometric shapes. Very cool!
First print of this design coming soon!
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This post is cross-posted to my ham-radio specific blog, kk9jef.wordpress.com.