The Sol Prototype Project

[falter]

Nice work!

Thank you! No idea if it'll work for fabrication, but it looks alright!

Trying to decide how many to run off. Never done a PCB run before. Looks like the initial board costs the most?

If anyone is interested in having one let me know. I'm not looking to make a profit or anything. I plan to give some away as a thank you to people on here who have been super helpful as well as a couple of my Patrons for Youtube.

 

[mountainking]

Yes I am dreading trying to figure out how to program the EPROMs for this thing heh!

This is a bit quixotic I guess. It's in the vein of 'because I can'. If the artwork hadn't been published somewhere then this would never have happened, but it has, so we're on our way.

Hopefully by the end of next year I will have three boards replicated: the Sol Prototype, the original JOLT, and one or two of the main Sphere boards.

I'm surprised no one has made a replica of the production Sol-20 board. I guess maybe because the originals are still fairly available, albeit expensive. I've never seen photos of a bare board nor the original artwork for it.. I'm not sure if that was ever published? Would be an interesting project though.

I appreciate your mission. Not everything has to be "practical".

 

[falter]

Thanks! For me this is so many things, art, history, puzzle solving. It's about as close as you get to time travel too.

I've got 10 boards ordered. I was going to go with 5, but the price differential to 10 was pretty small. I regret PCBWay will not let me send them vintage PCB stock to use. Hopefully I can find a board house somewhere that will. Otherwise I will have to learn electroplating.

 

[falter]

The boards arrived today! Whooohoo!

Overall I think they look awesome! There's only one glitch I can see so far... on a number of vias, I made the hole too small... 0.015". I think they should probably have been more around 0.020-0.025". The reason I'm bothered by this is because this board needs a whole mess of jumper wires to potentially work, and in my head I'm envisioning putting the wire into the hole and soldering it from the other side. 0.015" would be pretty thin wires. I'm thinking it probably would be fine to just solder on top of the pad since the board is thru plate?

Next round will have that fixed.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I'm thinking it probably would be fine to just solder on top of the pad since the board is thru plate?

If you have plated through vias there shouldn’t be any point in running wires through them other than for aesthetics, yes. (I’m guessing the original did *not* have plated-through holes and all components/sockets were soldered on both sides, then?)

 

[falter]

No it did. The problem was Bob Marsh made a last minute request during the layout process to move the 'S100' slot to a far corner of the PCB. They were under a deadline for the magazine and they tried to rework things as best they could, but there were something like 100 traces they could not lay out on the PCB because they would have crossed/interfered with other traces. So to build a functional machine from this, they had to run over 100 jumper wires to various places.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

Okay, so you’re talking about “vias” specifically for wires/components, not just plated vias to pass a signal from one side to the other. That’s a different kettle of fish.

 

[falter]

Okay, so you’re talking about “vias” specifically for wires/components, not just plated vias to pass a signal from one side to the other. That’s a different kettle of fish.

Yeah. I think the vias in question should have been around 0.025" but came out 0.015". They were the first ones I laid down when I started 2 years ago, before I started cluing in to certain design features. I don't know if they sell jumper wires that small (if I insisted on passing the wire thru the hole), if it matters for signal quality, or if I'm fine to just solder the wire over top of the via since it is thru plate.

 

[Hugo Holden]

Yeah. I think the vias in question should have been around 0.025" but came out 0.015". They were the first ones I laid down when I started 2 years ago, before I started cluing in to certain design features. I don't know if they sell jumper wires that small (if I insisted on passing the wire thru the hole), if it matters for signal quality, or if I'm fine to just solder the wire over top of the via since it is thru plate.

Won't be a problem. I have plenty of multi-color PTFE covered wire wrap style wires where the conductors are 0.32mm diameter = 0.0126" = 28 AWG. Can't recall where I got them (might have been Japan), but they must be a standard product line and I have seen thinner ones in stores too.

There seems to be a lot on ebay, much of it comes from China it seems, some in the USA, but you ideally need solid core not stranded. Click on:

Single Core Wire PTFE FEP Silver Plated Copper Cable 30AWG / 28AWG / 26AWG~20AWG | eBay

Size: 30awg / 0.05mm². 20awg / 0.5mm². 26awg / 0.12mm². 28awg / 0.08mm². Insulation Sheath: PTFE. The Wire Core Is Made of High-purity Oxygen Free Copper Silver Plated Material, with a Thick Silver Plating Layer, High Purity, Low Internal Resistance, and Low Loss.

www.ebay.com

It looks like they also have 30 AWG too.

There is a spool of black 28AWG Kynar wire in the USA:

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Solid Wiremod type 100 foot spools BLACK NEW! | eBay

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Style ~ 100 foot spools ~ NEW! 28 AWG Kynar Wire. Uses: Wire wrapping, Circuit Board Repair and "fixes", Jumper Wire, Wiremods, Chipmods! 10 Colors available: Black (00), Brown (01), Red (02), Orange (03), Yellow (04), Green (05), Blue (06), Violet (07), Gray (08)...

www.ebay.com

And some in orange:

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Solid Wiremod type 100 foot spools ORANGE NEW! | eBay

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Style ~ 100 foot spools ~ NEW! 28 AWG Kynar Wire. Uses: Wire wrapping, Circuit Board Repair and "fixes", Jumper Wire, Wiremods, Chipmods! 10 Colors available: Black (00), Brown (01), Red (02), Orange (03), Yellow (04), Green (05), Blue (06), Violet (07), Gray (08)...

www.ebay.com

And there is some Red at Skycraft Parts. I love that store. I went there while I was in the US in Orlando, its a great store to visit, it has a mock up rocket and a UFO on the roof.

Kynar Wire Wrap Wire, 28AWG, 100ft Red | eBay

Cut And Re-Spooled From a Longer Length. As Pictured. Skycraft Parts & SurplusOrlando, FL Specializing in surplus electroniccomponents and parts for over 40 years! Kynar Wire Wrap Wire, Red 28 Gauge, 100 Foot.

www.ebay.com

 

[falter]

Won't be a problem. I have plenty of multi-color PTFE covered wire wrap style wires where the conductors are 0.32mm diameter = 0.0126" = 28 AWG. Can't recall where I got them (might have been Japan), but they must be a standard product line and I have seen thinner ones in stores too.

There seems to be a lot on ebay, much of it comes from China it seems, some in the USA, but you ideally need solid core not stranded. Click on:

Single Core Wire PTFE FEP Silver Plated Copper Cable 30AWG / 28AWG / 26AWG~20AWG | eBay

Size: 30awg / 0.05mm². 20awg / 0.5mm². 26awg / 0.12mm². 28awg / 0.08mm². Insulation Sheath: PTFE. The Wire Core Is Made of High-purity Oxygen Free Copper Silver Plated Material, with a Thick Silver Plating Layer, High Purity, Low Internal Resistance, and Low Loss.

www.ebay.com

It looks like they also have 30 AWG too.

There is a spool of black 28AWG Kynar wire in the USA:

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Solid Wiremod type 100 foot spools BLACK NEW! | eBay

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Style ~ 100 foot spools ~ NEW! 28 AWG Kynar Wire. Uses: Wire wrapping, Circuit Board Repair and "fixes", Jumper Wire, Wiremods, Chipmods! 10 Colors available: Black (00), Brown (01), Red (02), Orange (03), Yellow (04), Green (05), Blue (06), Violet (07), Gray (08)...

www.ebay.com

And some in orange:

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Solid Wiremod type 100 foot spools ORANGE NEW! | eBay

28 AWG Kynar Wire Wrap UL1422 Style ~ 100 foot spools ~ NEW! 28 AWG Kynar Wire. Uses: Wire wrapping, Circuit Board Repair and "fixes", Jumper Wire, Wiremods, Chipmods! 10 Colors available: Black (00), Brown (01), Red (02), Orange (03), Yellow (04), Green (05), Blue (06), Violet (07), Gray (08)...

www.ebay.com

And there is some Red at Skycraft Parts. I love that store. I went there while I was in the US in Orlando, its a great store to visit, it has a mock up rocket and a UFO on the roof.

Kynar Wire Wrap Wire, 28AWG, 100ft Red | eBay

Cut And Re-Spooled From a Longer Length. As Pictured. Skycraft Parts & SurplusOrlando, FL Specializing in surplus electroniccomponents and parts for over 40 years! Kynar Wire Wrap Wire, Red 28 Gauge, 100 Foot.

www.ebay.com

Thanks for this! Will definitely look into those. I have mostly revised the board to have larger vias.. but I'd like to try making this first batch work. I am starting to suspect the original prototypes were not thru plated so drilling out here and there probably won't be a big deal if I run into a component that doesn't fit.

 

[Vermithrax]

This might be of interest.