ground plain?

Thread Starter

hairball45

Joined Jul 13, 2012
6
hi all, first post,

i've done odds and sod's over the years with too much time inbetween.. forgotten more than i know etc etc..most recently i'm back into tinkering after a long stay in a bed and sitting around in undiscribable states of illness blah blah sob story..what-ever etc etc

so, what 'defines' a ground plain? how or why is it used?

ok on a AC curcuit the third pin on the plug is the 'ground', a seperate 'terminal' more or less (in the UK).. but in a DC curcuit in a small box?


forgive any slowness.. i have key bits of info missing and in other cases a total 'block', just trying to break back through.


my aims in general are to make devices for portable power sources, battery, solar etc..
on the list,volage and amp step up, keeping a constant volt/amp current from the deminising or fluctuating voltage supply. PWM seems fairly advantagous, alas sifting the net has more than been confusing with continual fluctuasions of its own, i.e. 90 percent bull ****.. backed up with a negative feed back loop of relavent 'key bits' constantly missing in some unified fob off involving a lot of waisted cash.

i need to learn not follow a trend of buy this buy that to no avail.

(i'mabout 7 year out of any main streem so things have bound to have changed but tbh..a few transisters will always be usefull..but, a tidy small surface mount design does seem to reduce the sizes rather nicely lol!).


second question (it may seem unrelated but hey ho...its all electricity innit!)

these joule theives, as far as i can make out there is a maths to it..and obviously its limited in some way or other, but there's 'better' versions in use, alas where on the net?? another 'ooo i have one but you cant have it'.
any pointers here?


help on inductors, making them.. the banks tight this end. how to use?

sorry..lol.. theres a hole list of longggg reading that can be summed up in minutes.

thank you.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Welcome to AAC!

Ground Planes. This has more to do with RF than anything else.

Electronics has not changed much in 7 years, or 20 for that matter.

My suggestion, start projects, or at least ask about those that interest you.
 

Thread Starter

hairball45

Joined Jul 13, 2012
6
hmmm the dreaded google, lol, thank you.

i think nothing much has changed since everybody was winding verytype of coil they could. Bar smaller compoinents and the transister.

i cant help thinking it cant be long before they just spray form curcuits directly, no compoinents as such.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
Each layer on a multi-layer circuit is called a plane. This is a term from Plane Geometry which most of us had in 10th grade. It provides a very short connection to a low impedance return to the power supply. The alternative would be a series of long skinny traces routed all over the place on a typical 2-layer board.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
hmmm the dreaded google, lol, thank you.

i think nothing much has changed since everybody was winding verytype of coil they could. Bar smaller compoinents and the transister.

i cant help thinking it cant be long before they just spray form curcuits directly, no compoinents as such.

Not real likely, through hole is still alive an well on the hobbyist market. Surface mount is not far behind.

As for Google, might as well get used to it, it is how many people find this site. It is how general research is done, at least the first steps. Many cases people want folks to feed them info that they could have easily found themselves.

A lot like spell checkers, in many ways.

If you haven't already I would suggest you read our Terms of Service, it covers several types of circuits we do not allow here. This site is a teaching site, and we have a lot of beginners.

We also have a restriction on automotive circuits.

If you have a project you need help with you will find a lot of willing people. No one is paid here, it is completely volunteer. We have specific forums to allow special interests within electronics.

You will find the old hands have their location on their profile, and it is displayed on the upper right hand corner. This allows us to refer you to parts sources easier.

Have fun.
 

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,283
.....................
Ground Planes. This has more to do with RF than anything else.
..........................
Depends upon how broadly you define RF. I think you will find that most high speed digital boards use ground planes to achieve effective decoupling of the sharp edge transients generated by the fast logic transitions. So if you define those high frequency transients as RF then we are on the same page. ;)
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
Depends upon how broadly you define RF. I think you will find that most high speed digital boards use ground planes to achieve effective decoupling of the sharp edge transients generated by the fast logic transitions. So if you define those high frequency transients as RF then we are on the same page. ;)
Any PCB with load current transients benefits from ground planes and decoupling capacitors with leads a short as possible. Anybody remember those 18-pin sockets with ceramic capacitors going from pin-18(Vcc) to pin-9(GND) for RAM chips. Not quite the right idea but close.
 
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