BATC Forum

White smoke....

I've just completed the hardware build and started testing voltages.
The lowest voltage I can get form the buck DC-DC converter is 4.07v and there is 16v on the input.
I cannot physically turn the pot lower its at the end of its travel.

I expected 4.07v to be ok and put a jumper on J2

Very shortly there was smoke coming from the zener diode and I checked the voltage - 6.1v not good!

I assume this is a buck converter problem? or anything else it could be? Input voltage?
If so, where is the best place to get a reliable DC-Dc converter. This one was £1.96 from ebay

Will anything else be dead now?

Many thanks for any advice
Keith

I think zener is dead too - just tested 4ohms in each direction.
Hopefully it shorted all the voltage out so the regulators are ok.

There seems to be a few posts of issues with these DC-DC boards, I need to buy one for my kit but I cannot find a known good seller for this particular board or a known good version.

It might be worth putting the info on here where yours was obtained.

Good luck with the build and hope it's just the zener!

I got the first one that blew from ebay seller alltopnotch
Second one will be from ebay seller booskibits (although i think someone already had a failure from them)

I'll report back when it arrives.

It was just the zener that blew fortunately.

Well there's a thing!

The one I got today from booskibits worked but alltopnotch failed!
Whereas its the opposite for G8DPH

Looks like its a matter of luck then!