PCB design - is it art? Just showing off...

[VacuumVoodoo]

Tried to make it look like old school hand laid PCB with Bishop Graphics tapes - some of you might remeber that stuff All done in EAGLE v5.
The principle is pretty simple: ground bus, HV bus and all control signals run horizontally. Audio runs vertically, tubes are below, pots etc above.
I love making PCB layouts, has very calming effect.

[Structo]

Very pretty!:D

Is this a top and bottom trace board? (dual layer?)

Love the text!

[Phil_S]

Very cool. I like it.
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[VacuumVoodoo]

Phil_S
Thanks for heads-up. Had hosting problems during the weekend. Still can't login to my FTP etc...Hosting company alerted.
Structo
Yes, double sided, plated through. Red tracks are on component side, blue solder side.

[M Fowler]

Very nice board I wish I had your skills

Mark

[katopan]

Definitely art! Very nice.

[NickC]

I may not know Art .... but I know beauty when I see it, and that is beautiful!

[d95err]

Beautiful. I will save this for inspiration for future builds...

[vibratoking]

Nice layout.

Why the grid on the comp side fill? Also, what is the fill for? I would be tempted to leave a lot more copper on the power and grounds.

No silkscreens? I don't like a PCB without silksreens for many reasons. I like the convenience of 'reading' the PCB as I work on it.

I guess I should not critique art, but it's hard for me to look at a PCB as art. I've done so many that after a while it is just a functional block. Sorry.

As I remember, your layout has many of the same ideas as the Fuchs ODS PCB that I looked at a long time ago.

[VacuumVoodoo]

Thanks guys!
Well, I showed only copper tracks on purpose. I see no so much art in silk screen as it is only help for assembly and future service. Of course it gets printed once board goes into production.
Copper fills are local ground shields under low level high impedance high gain input circuits. Grid pattern is to keep relatively uniform copper area, large contiguous copper fills can sometimes warp a board on the wave.
If you're implying that my layout technique is similar to Andy Fuchs' - well, I've been using this style since "before CAD" in mid 1970s along with many others, I don't claim to have invented it. Also, Andy and I are good friends so we talk a lot and exchange ideas.
BTW, since you have been doing PCB layouts for long time then surely you know the original master layout is called "art work".
A bit sad you lost the art part of it.

[Aurora]

PCBs are probably not "art" in the traditional form, but good PCBs requires a lot of experience and surely some "fingerspitzgefühl" to get right. Some engineers never seem to grasp the required touch.....

Nice PCB though, although I may have wanted some more distance at a few ponits around the HV lines, but Voodoo have doen PCBs before.
That said, I've been making PCBs for over 40 years, but not for HV except for line input to transformers or PSU units.
Building prototypes without silcscreens is just a matter of habit....
I manage a small PCB prototype plant at work, and are quite used to it.
I have sometimes made "screens" with a sharpie, but nowadays we usually do one or a few test boards, and then send it off to a PCB house...

[VacuumVoodoo]

No worries about isolation distances. Where it looks like a too small isolation distance the potential difference between those points is less than 10V.
As for track width on ground and power bus: total current draw is 15mA at 400V and copper thickness is 70um so even only 2mm wide HV track is overkill.

[vibratoking]

Errant post