[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by marccenter

Mike,
Kudo's for coming up with 2008 IR Board #2 design. Further recommendation deals with JP1. Since the standard method of hooking up is to use 3 wire, pwm cables, I recommend modifying JP1 to become 4 sets of 3 wires to mate with the pwm cables for the 4 signal input/outputs. The 10 pin JP1 would then become a 3 column by 4 rows or 12 pin connector..

That is a great suggestion. The reason I stuck with the two row config is so teams that have already made custom wiring would not have to make a new harness. If they need a replacement they can just swap out boards.

Originally Posted by marccenter

Since your design features a reverse polarity diode without a LDO regulator, I would propose moving the power/ground
input to a separate connector (JP3?). I added this in conjunction with one of those 2 pin terminal blocks to provide power
to one of the KOP IR boards. I am assuming a connection to the 12V fuse panel in this configuration..

Same reason as above.

Originally Posted by marccenter

Can you also space the 78L05 TO-92 pads to be TO-220 pad spacing? This would facilitate replacement of the 78L05 with 7805 TO-220 parts. I needed help from Frank Leritz, HDC-Troy, to swap out the part because the TO-92 pads were so tightly spaced.

This is a great suggestion. I will see if I can fit a T-220. We bypassed the reg all-together and just run off of the 5 volt dig outputs +5v rail. The rc has a 5 volt reg built in. Why not use it. If you do, you have the advantage of not dealing with transient V-drop from overloading the 12 volt battery. Any time Vbatt drops below Vdropout the backup battery kicks in. You have near perfect regulation. Also, you can wire the board directly to the rc without a breaker as allowed by the rules. This saves weight and I know how precious that can be to those mechanical people.