12F683 Light Dimmer Problem (SOLVED)

[HenrikOlsson]

You might know exactly what you're doing and if so that's great but just in case you don't here are some comments meant in all friendlyness:

You're dealing with mains voltages here so you need think a bit about clearance and creepage distances between the two nodes (phase/neutral) of the mains itself AND between the mains and the low voltage section.

It looks like you're running phase and neutral REALLY (really!) close together and close to pins 5 and 7 on the AC/DC module (up along the right hand side of the board as shown in the photo) and also REALLY close to the output of the AC/DC module (I'm talking specifically about the pad for L1 which I'm guessing is the series inductor on the output).

There's a reason there's 0.2" between pins on the mains side and then 0.3" between pins OF the mains side and the secondary side of the AC/DC module. By then having pins/pads of components connected to the mains side in close proximity of pins/pads connected to secondary side you're throwing that nice isolation that the AC/DC module provides out the window.

Yes, there' soldermask on the traces and it helps but still, I would not feel comfortable with that - especially if I were to hand it over to someone else - friend or not :-)

Again, all meant in a friendly way!

/Henrik.

[DavyJones]

Henrik, Thank you. You make very good points here. this is version one and I did not worry about some of those distances. In v2.0 I will take into account your suggestions to properly space the AC. I crammed things close together not taking that into account so the board would fit into the box I had on hand. I'm going to take your advice on my next one and design it first then find a box it will fit nicely into. I did solder all the components on there and it does work however as you pointed out there are a few things I need to consider.
I appreciate the feedback.