Mark has ordered the boards with parts installed by the PCBWAY board house to let his students build 10 complete Curve Trace instruments that will be tested and eventually used during classes in the University labs. I have received the last revision of the Front panel and one of the Front boards from PCBWAY and used that to bring my unit up to the last revision. My unit is now completed and finished.
Note: When you order boards, make sure you select the black color for the Face Plate and the Back plate, otherwise you will get the default color and that may be green.
IMPORTANT: As some of you may know already, designing something is bliss, manufacturing is hell. Especially after some time because things have a habit of changing. Keep an eye out to newer revision numbers of the BOM's. I have added the partnumbers other users recommended because we either made a mistake in the ordernumber, or the part is no longer available. These alternatives are listed as suggestions. We cannot keep track of this ourselves but appreciate it if you can point out where there are partnumber issues so others can benefit.
This is a repository to hold all files related to the VBA Curve Tracer project. With this information you can build one yourself. Note that newer versions of files will overwrite the existing ones, there will be no version control. Look at the upload dates for more information.
There are four different Blogs that I created for this project. The original posting with a description of the Theory of Operation for the CT and the building of my first version, a working prototype.
http://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2017/12/building-curve-tracer.html
A few years later, a PCB layout has been developed using mostly SMD parts by Mark Allie. The Blog that covers the Version 2 can be found here:
http://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2021/03/building-curve-tracer-v2.html
Some of the development process of the VBA Curve Tracer (Version 3) with the help from Mark Allie and Bud Bennet can be found here:
http://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2021/03/building-curve-tracer-version-3.html
The information about the final instrument for a DIY build can be found here:
https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2022/06/the-vba-curve-tracer.html
I also created a blog post with several measurements that were made with the VBA Curve Tracer.
https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2021/11/making-meassurements-with-v3-curve.html
Enjoy!