F600 Low Pass Filter kit

I designed, built and tested this in my spare time with little expectations, a lot of curiosity
and a hope to make my small contribution to the Amateur Radio world. I trust you will enjoy
putting this together and using it in the spirit of Amateur Radio.
If you have any issues, I'm just an email away.
Razvan (M0HZH) - razvan@qrpblog.com

The F600 is a 600W 1.8 MHz to 72Mhz Low Pass Filter board optimized for Amateur Radio
use. It is meant to be used with the A600 linear LDMOS amplifier kit (same board size and
matching holes make the boards stackable) but it can be used with any amplifier with similar
characteristics. This is an Advanced level kit and assumes you have a good understanding of
electronics.

To assemble this kit you will need the following tools & materials:
- soldering kit
- multimeter
- wire cutter
- utility knife

To check the alignment of the 6m/4m filter it is also helpful to have an instrument that can
trace the response curve of the filter; a NanoVNA is very affordable nowadays and very
useful around an electronics lab or amateur radio shack.

Control Port

The frequency coverage is split into 7 different segments, each with its separate filters. The
Control Port (J5) is used to power the board and select the wanted filter. The selection is
done with +5V TTL compatible signals and the required power is 12V / 200mA.

Pinout:

1 - LPF6 (6m/4m)
2 - LPF0 (160m)
3 - LPF5 (12m/10m)
4 - LPF1 (80m)
5 - LPF4 (17m/15m)
6 - LPF2 (60m/40m)
7 - LPF3 (30m/20m)
8 - GND
9 - 12Vdc
10 - GND
It is highly recommended to use a ferrite choke on the cable that connects to J3 and
decouple each signal with a 10nF ceramic capacitor to ground at the other end. The board
allows selecting any number of filters at one time, so you need to make sure the control
circuitry selects only one filter (the correct one).

Kit contents

- Printed Circuit Board with pre-soldered SMT parts

- 14x SPST relays
- 2x T94-2 toroid cores (larger, red)
- 4x T80-2 toroid cores (smaller, red)
- 6x T80-6 toroid cores (smaller, yellow)
- 1.12mm enamelled copper wire
- 1.5mm silver-plated copper wire
- connectors (02x05 IDC, 2x SMA-F angled)

Assemble parts

The inductors require assembly before they can be installed. L1 - L12 are made with
enamelled copper wire wound on iron powder toroid cores, while L13 and L14 are air
wound inductors made from silver-plated copper wire. Here is the data for each inductor:

Inductor Core Turns Length (cm) Length (in)

L1 T94-2 22t 67 26.4
L2 T94-2 20t 61 24.0
L3 T80-2 20t 51 20.1
L4 T80-2 18t 46 18.1
L5 T80-2 16t 42 16.5
L6 T80-2 14t 37 14.6
L7 T80-6 12t 33 13.0
L8 T80-6 11t 30 11.8
L9 T80-6 10t 28 11.0
L10 T80-6 9t 26 10.2
L11 T80-6 8t 23 9.1
L12 T80-6 7t 21 8.3
L13 air, d=11, l=12 4.7t 21 7.1
L14 air, d=11, l=9 3.7t 18 5.9
L1 to L12 - cut the length of enamelled copper wire, pick the right toroid core and wind the
required number of turns from the table above. 1 turn = wire passing 1 time through the
center of the toroid. Make sure the turns are tight and evenly spaced over 90% of the toroid
core and cut any excess wire length. With the utility knife scrape the insulation from the
wire ends. Make sure you apply a clean layer of solder coating, install the inductor as in the
picture and solder in place.

L13 & L14 - cut the length of silver plated copper wire and wind over a 10mm / 0.4in coil
former, can be a pen, a small screwdriver handle etc. Space the turns evenly so the inductor
has the correct length. Keep in mind the measurements in the table are from center of wire
(that's why we use 10mm former for a 11mm coil, the thickness of the wire adds up). The
last turn is about 3/4 complete (that's why the turns number ends in .7). Cut excess wire
length and install like in the picture.