Sigma11 Power Supply for Dummies


Having soldered everything together (well all that was SUPPOSED to be soldered at least) it is time to cram it all into your casing!

Plan your build!

Yeah, I know... I may not seem like much of a planner, but in order not to scrap your expensive casing you should plan a little ahead. Where will you put the components, where will it make the most sense to route wiring etc. Above you can see how I planned the placement of the PCB and the toroid making sure all wires would fit. What is not shown is that I also planned the backplate ahead to make sure the the IEC socket would steer clear of the toroid.

Once you have everything figured out, drill the holes necessary to hold your PCB and toroid.

Back plate.

Continue to lay out holes for the backplate. Put some effort into this one since any fuck-ups will be visible on the finished project.

To not scratch the surface of the backplate I usually cover (at least partially) the surface with masking tape.

When finished, make a test fitting to see if you have it all right.

Front plate.

Carefully mark out the position of the front LED.
What I did was first drill from the back with a 2mm drill to make a guide hole. Then I drilled from the front with a 5mm drill (as I will be using a 5mm LED). The reason I did it this was is that I did the marking on the backside so the first hole had to be back-to-front... The reason I did no just drill a 5mm hole from the back to the front is that often the exit hole is realy not all that neat.
Since my front plate is 10mm thick there is no way the 5mm LED will "make it through to the other side"...

...so I turned the faceplate front down and drillet a 6,5mm hole from the back. This hole DOES NOT GO ALL THE WAY THROUGH! Only some of the way. After drilling a bit I would test fit the LED to see if it was peeking through the face plate.

After drilling a bit more and test fitting a couple of times I got it just the way I wanted.

Finally I simply glued the LED into the hole.

Putting it all together.

Once more it is time to solder. Try to keep all wiring as short as possible, but make it long enough that you can disassemble everything should you ever need to.

This is what I ended up with. I was now ready to test if all was OK!