Build Instructions

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  Step 1

  Refer to the full paper published in O'Reilly BioCoder issue 6.

  The circuit is simple enough to construct directly by soldering point-to-point onto a copper prototyping board. It is best to spatially separate analog circuits from digital circuits to reduce electrical noise. In general, analog circuits are best soldered on a copper board rather than prototyped in a solderless breadboard to reduce stray capacitance. Leads of components are trimmed to reduce length and reduce stray inductance. A copper prototyping board with bus traces is used to ease construction. The specific bus board used has 5 connections for each pin in a DIP IC footprint plus two power rails down the center. The power rails are helpful in higher speed digital circuits, to reduce digital noise, or in analog circuits like this one, as a large ground bus. In constructing this board, the two power rails are soldered together at a single point and used as a larger ground. The bypass capacitor in particular, used to reduce power supply noise, should have short leads and is often arranged diagonally across the top of the IC, to reach as close to the IC as possible while connecting power to ground.

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