First, locate the 35pf trimmer capacitors supplied in your kit. The photo on the left shows the back side of these capacitors, and the reason for this first note: these trimmers must be mounted so they are not centered between the two gate traces, they must be offset so the round part in the center does not sit above the opposite trace. If centered, it will short the two traces together.
Mount it as shown in the next photo, with most of the capacitor body over the bottom trace. Solder into place.
Pre-set the slotted adjustments as shown, with the slot vertical. This will
put the capacitors at mid-range, and very close to resonance with the rest of the
input circuits.
Install all the components on the input board, with the RG316 input coax baluns installed last (they get in the way of installing the other things).
For reference, a high-resolution schematic is here.
Note the spacing between turns on the input coils.
Install all the components on the output board, with the RG402 output coax baluns installed last (they get in the way of installing the other things).
The 250w termination will be installed later.
Note the polarity on the electrolytic capacitors.
The coaxial capacitors (white coax pieces) must be installed 30mm from the
left edge of the pc board.
Prepare
your copper heat spreader and heat sink using the templates and video provided
here:
Copper spreader drilling template (top)
Copper spreader drilling template (bottom)
Video on mounting LDMOS
to copper spreader
Apply
a thin, even coating of heat sink compound between spreader and heat sink.
Mount the spreader assembly to the heat sink loosely with three 8-32 screws (the flat washers are not necessary) on the top side, and four 6-32 screws on the bottom (these four screws pass through the heat sink into the holes tapped into the bottom of the copper spreader).
Position the board and termination spacers as shown. The termination spacer
should also have heat sink compound applied to the surface that sits on the heat
sink.
Slide
the input and output boards under the transistor tabs, and loosely fasten with
4-40 screws and flat washers.
The eight 4-40 screws nearest the transistors should be 3/16 long, and the others should be 3/4 long.
Apply heat sink compound to the foot of the 250w termination and loosely fasten down using 4-40 screws and flat washers. These screws should be 5/8 long.
Once everything is aligned properly, secure all of the screws. The four 6-32 screws and the three #8 screws holding the copper spreader to the heat sink, and the two termination screws should be tight. All the rest of the screws (4-40) should be snug and firm only, do not over-tighten.
Using a bit of liquid flux, solder the LDMOS tabs to the board.
Now solder the termination tab to the coupler port.
There are 3 VDD connections on this board, and I usually jumper the outer connections over to the center one with #16 wire, and feed VDD to the center VDD connection (the widest one).
In the next step (testing) an output coax lead will need to be installed. Drill a couple of holes into the board spacer near the output port, and
use these to secure a copper or tin bracket. This bracket is soldered to the
shield of the coax lead, and after securing it to the spacer, the center
conductor of the coax is soldered to the output port.
Turn on the 50v main supply voltage, but not the bias; there should be no current drawn
Turn on the bias and note the idling current drawn from the 50v supply. Adjust IDQ for 2 amps. Note: the current drawn by the bias supply (usually12v) is not what you are measuring here...you must measure the idling current (IDQ) the LDMOS draws from the 50v supply.
Shut off the power supply, and remove current limiting.