I've had a few people ask me to take photos of my Pole Position PCB and to describe what I've done to mod my Pole Position PCBs. Please note that (A) I didn't discover/invent the modification... I found one mod (the power distribution mod) already done to my Pole Position PCB... and the board was marked as being fixed by Dick M... I am not sure if he did the mod or if someone after him... that is just how I found it. As for the switcher mod, I read about it online somewhere.
I have no idea if these mods help keep PP PCB's stable or not... I just know that I've modded both mine and I have had ZERO trouble with both PCB's in the year and a half or so since I've had them.
Anyway, here is what I did:
The YELLOW circles indicate GND test points on each board. The BLUE circles indicate +5 test points on each board. Note that there are 3 test points on the front board and 1 on the back... I used RED wire for the power on the front board and YELLOW wire for the power on the back and GND is black on both boards. The word on the street is that this mod distributes power more evenly than just using the edge connector...
Now it comes to a point where you have options. Option (1) would be to solder the +5 and GND wires to their perspective pins using the edge connector... or option (2) is what I chose to go with... which is to wire in a switcher power supply to deal with the +5..
What I did was I used a standard 4-pin molex connector... I wired 2 positions for ground and 2 positions for +5 for both the board side and the switcher side. I then removed all existing +5 power coming from the original linear power supplies in the cab... though some have said that is unnecessary... I did it anyway.
So the original power supplies still pump out the +12 and whatever other voltages are necessary... but the switcher supplies the +5 via the molex connector...
Pretty simple and straight forward... and like I said, my cab has been running this way with ZERO issues for about a year and half now.
I have no idea if these mods help keep PP PCB's stable or not... I just know that I've modded both mine and I have had ZERO trouble with both PCB's in the year and a half or so since I've had them.
Anyway, here is what I did:
The YELLOW circles indicate GND test points on each board. The BLUE circles indicate +5 test points on each board. Note that there are 3 test points on the front board and 1 on the back... I used RED wire for the power on the front board and YELLOW wire for the power on the back and GND is black on both boards. The word on the street is that this mod distributes power more evenly than just using the edge connector...
Now it comes to a point where you have options. Option (1) would be to solder the +5 and GND wires to their perspective pins using the edge connector... or option (2) is what I chose to go with... which is to wire in a switcher power supply to deal with the +5..
What I did was I used a standard 4-pin molex connector... I wired 2 positions for ground and 2 positions for +5 for both the board side and the switcher side. I then removed all existing +5 power coming from the original linear power supplies in the cab... though some have said that is unnecessary... I did it anyway.
So the original power supplies still pump out the +12 and whatever other voltages are necessary... but the switcher supplies the +5 via the molex connector...
Pretty simple and straight forward... and like I said, my cab has been running this way with ZERO issues for about a year and half now.


