How TINY Can I go? The BEST Power Board is here!

Important! My own designs here were not EMC tested. I will explore that topic in a future video ;-) There we will see whether my boards follow guidelines and how we can possibly change the design to make that happen. Also we will test the Ali Board as well concerning EMC. That will be fun. I hope you are looking forward to that ;-) Also if you are interested in Würth Elektronik products/services then you can contact them directly if you are a company or business: www.we-online.com/en/products/components/ordering-… But if you are a without a company then you can contact their distributors about their products: www.we-online.com/en/support/network/distribution

Another idea to get it even smaller: This is a non-isolating converter, so you don't need a GND pin at output. That enables you to just put all the contacts on one edge. GND in the center, and capacitors on the sides in between. I bet you can make it smaller if you place more components on the backside too, but for manufacturing all components on the same side are prefered.

Experienced engineer here... Looking at your PCB design i noticed that you make so called via-stitching equally spaced, which is a bad habit. Especially in fast switching circuits. That's because those places often become nodes of the high frequency standing waves, which in result amplifies the noise, energy loses, and destroys the electromagnetic compatibility of your circuit. This is quite unintuitive, but randomly placing vias (which for an untrained eye may seem unprofessional and ugly) in fact makes your circuit better!

While browsing TI's product page for the TPS63020 I came across the TPS631000, which TI itself describes as 'Upgraded product with 8-uA IQ and smaller SOT package.'. It would be really cool to see you make a board design using this chip, especially since i couldn't find any boards using this IC online.

Nice little chip. I have considered using it for backup power for some home-grown smart home devices but ultimately didn't go through. I missed one thing from the video though, that can make or break a power supply and that is capacitor derating. Class II ceramic capacitors are pretty nasty and change their capacitance if they are DC biased and me not taking that into account actually cost me weeks of troubleshooting because of unstable power caused by the lack of capacitance at the input. TI has a pretty nice online design tool that helps you find derated values and most capacitor manufacturers have a public database. P.S. Thanks for reminding me about this IC, I have a project where it should serve me perfectly (Edit: corrected grammar)

That is the cutest reflow plate I've ever seen!

Pcb designing for switching converter is actually pretty intense and interesting The way you place your current loops become very important I recently did first attempt at pcb designing and have it fabricated ( Not good but usable) Useing kicad I highly recommend Phil's lab vids if anyone wants to know more about it

Wow! That’s amazing! Also, those inductors are incredible for their size! I’ve been working on a PCB which needs to put out 5V with as much current as possible, as small as possible, which runs on a single 18650. I ended up landing on a TI chip as well that’s just amazingly small for the power it can handle. It’s a fun challenge!

Thanks GREAT Scott. I like this video, just like all the others you have made. You and Captain Dissolution are 2 of my favourite creators

I would love to see more miniaturization videos! This was great.

This was very timely for me. I would love to see the lipo charging ic built into a tiny board like this - that’s something I need for lots of small projects

I am designing something that does use this IC, I have never designed anything of the kind before and this video was indirectly a great help ty man

I'm excited for that EMC testing video. Great video, Scott!

Always a pleasure to see your projects.

I really like these old school circuit design videos!

I love your videos. There explained so well and I always learn, some videos I bookmark for future reference in case I need them. Thank you!

I really enjoyed this video. Showing the progression as you removed components, especially capacitors. Very informative.

Multiple different size (and or type) capacitors are better at filtering noise than just one large one. Inductance might also play a role in choosing multiple capacitors.

I love videos that show design and iteration! Thanks. I would be good to know the design lifecycle from starting design to the EMC tested final product. An evaluation on component cost is probably a factor that influenced the size.

Brilliant, dude! Fantastic work!!! 😃 Looking forward to the EMC tests! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊