Vicor VI Chip High Voltage BCM Customer Evaluation Board - Manual (Page 3)

UG:010 vicorpower.com Applications Engineering: 800 927.9474 Page 3
Set Up
The High Voltage BCM ® Evaluation Board should be set up as follows:
Note: Care should be taken to avoid reversing polarities if connecting to the opposite (solder) side of
the board.
+ IN, – IN
Connect a high-quality, low-noise power supply to the +IN and –IN terminals of the evaluation
board. The interconnect leads should be heavy gauge and as short as possible. Additional
capacitance may have to be added on the evaluation board to make up for impedances in the
interconnect leads as well as deficiencies in the source. It is important to remember that noise
from the source, as well as any input source voltage drops, will appear at the output of the bus
converter multiplied by its K factor. Test points 4 (–IN) and 5 (+IN) can be used to monitor the
input and are located on the PCB adjacent to the input terminals.
+ OUT, –OUT
An electronic or passive load should be connected to +OUT and –OUT terminals of the evaluation
board with short heavy-gauge leads. Most commercially available electronic loads do not have
current slew rates capable of fully exercising the BCM module. The evaluation board can be
connected directly to the application for which the module is intended. However, the interconnect
impedances between the evaluation board and the application can greatly affect the transient
response. For applications where transient response is critical, the user should consider mounting
the BCM module directly to the target application PCB. Test points 6 (–OUT) and 7 (+OUT) can be
used to monitor the output and are located on the PCB adjacent to the output terminals.
Output Voltage Measurement Jack (J1)
This connector is provided to make accurate measurements of the output voltage of the BCM
module. Many types of scope probes may be directly connected to this point if the probe is
equipped with a removable plastic sheath. To avoid creating ground loops when making
measurements of the output or input voltage, these measurements should be made separately.
Input Current Measurement
A current probe can be passed around the +IN lead connected to the BCM module. Input
capacitors on the evaluation board are downstream of this measurement point.
Temperature Monitor (TM)
Refer to specific High Voltage BCM module data sheet for details.
RSV - Do not connect, for factory use only.