Construction

First of all let us consider a few basics in building electronic circuits on a printed circuit board. The board is made of a thin insulating material clad with a thin layer of conductive copper that is shaped in such a way as to form the necessary conductors between the various components of the circuit. The use of a properly designed printed circuit board is very desirable as it speeds construction up considerably and reduces the possibility of making errors. To protect the board during storage from oxidation and assure it gets to you in perfect condition the copper is tinned during manufacturing and covered with a special varnish that protects it from getting oxidised and also makes soldering easier.
Soldering the components to the board is the only way to build your circuit and from the way you do it depends greatly your success or failure. This work is not very difficult and if you stick to a few rules you should have no problems. The soldering iron that you use must be light and its power should not exceed the 25 Watts. The tip should be fine and must be kept clean at all times. For this purpose come very handy specially made sponges that are kept wet and from time to time you can wipe the hot tip on them to remove all the residues that tend to accumulate on it.
DO NOT file or sandpaper a dirty or worn out tip. If the tip cannot be cleaned, replace it. There are many different types of solder in the market and you should choose a good quality one that contains the necessary flux in its core, to assure a perfect joint every time. 
DO NOT use soldering flux apart from that which is already included in your solder. Too much flux can cause many problems and is one of the main causes of circuit malfunction. If nevertheless you have to use extra flux, as it is the case when you have to tin copper wires, clean it very thoroughly after you finish your work.
In order to solder a component correctly you should do the following:
- Clean the component leads with a small piece of emery paper.
- Bend them at the correct distance from the components body and insert he component in its place on the board.
- You may find sometimes a component with heavier gauge leads than usual, that are too thick to enter in the holes of the p.c. board. In this case use a mini drill to enlarge the holes slightly. Do not make the holes too large as this is going to make soldering difficult afterwards.
- Take the hot iron and place its tip on the component lead while holding the end of the solder wire at the point where the lead emerges from the board. The iron tip must touch the lead slightly above the p.c. board.
- When the solder starts to melt and flow wait till it covers evenly the area around the hole and the flux boils and gets out from underneath the solder. 
- The whole operation should not take more than 5 seconds. Remove the iron and allow the solder to cool naturally without blowing on it or moving the component. If everything was done properly the surface of the joint must have a bright metallic finish and its edges should be smoothly ended on the component lead and the board track. If the solder looks dull, cracked, or has the shape of a blob then you have made a dry joint and you should remove the solder (with a pump, or a solder wick) and redo it. Take care not to overheat the tracks as it is very easy to lift them from the board and break them.
- When you are soldering a sensitive component it is good practice to hold the lead from the component side of the board with a pair of long-nose pliers to divert any heat that could possibly damage the component. 
- Make sure that you do not use more solder than it is necessary as you are running the risk of short-circuiting adjacent tracks on the board, especially if they are very close together.
- When you finish your work, cut off the excess of the component leads and clean the board thoroughly with a suitable solvent to remove all flux residues that may still remain on it.

As it is recommended start working by identifying the components and separating them in groups. Place first of all the sockets for the ICs and the pins for the external connections and solder them in their places. Continue with the resistors. Remember to mound R7 at a certain distance from the printed circuit board as it tends to become quite hot, especially when the circuit is supplying heavy currents, and this could possibly damage the board. It is also advisable to mount R1 at a certain distance from the surface of the PCB as well. Continue with the capacitors observing the polarity of the electrolytic and finally solder in place the diodes and the transistors taking care not to overheat them and being at the same time very careful to align them correctly.

Mount the power transistor on the heatsink. To do this follow the diagram and remember to use the mica insulator between the transistor body and the heatsink and the special fibber washers to insulate the screws from the heatsink. Remember to place the soldering tag on one of the screws from the side of the transistor body, this is going to be used as the collector lead of the transistor. Use a little amount of Heat Transfer Compound between the transistor and the heatsink to ensure the maximum transfer of heat between them, and tighten the screws as far as they will go. 

Attach a piece of insulated wire to each lead taking care to make very good joints as the current that flows in this part of the circuit is quite heavy, especially between the emitter and the collector of the transistor.

It is convenient to know where you are going to place every thing inside the case that is going to accommodate your power supply, in order to calculate the length of the wires to use between the PCB and the potentiometers, the power transistor and for the input and output connections to the circuit. (It does not really matter if the wires are longer but it makes a much neater project if the wires are trimmed at exactly the length necessary).

Connect the potentiometers, the LED and the power transistor and attach two pairs of leads for the input and output connections. Make sure that you follow the circuit diagram very care fully for these connections as there are 15 external connections to the circuit in total and if you make a mistake it may be very difficult to find it afterwards. It is a good idea to use cables of different colours in order to make trouble shooting easier.

The external connections are:

- 1 & 2 AC input, the secondary of the transformer.

- 3 (+) & 4 (-) DC output.

- 5, 10 & 12 to P1.

- 6, 11 & 13 to P2.

- 7 (E), 8 (B), 9 (E) to the power transistor Q4.

- The LED should also be placed on the front panel of the case where it is always visible but the pins where it is connected at are not numbered.

When all the external connections have been finished make a very careful inspection of the board and clean it to remove soldering flux residues. Make sure that there are no bridges that may short circuit adjacent tracks and if everything seems to be all right connect the input of the circuit with the secondary of a suitable mains transformer. Connect a voltmeter across the output of the circuit and the primary of the transformer to the mains.

DO NOT TOUCH ANY PART OF THE CIRCUIT WHILE IT IS UNDER POWER. 

Adjustments

If you want the output of your supply to be adjustable between 0 and 30 V you should adjust RV1 to make sure that when P1 is at its minimum setting the output of the supply is exactly 0 V. As it is not possible to measure very small values with a conventional panel meter it is better to use a digital meter for this adjustment, and to set it at a very low scale to increase its sensitivity.

The voltmeter should measure a voltage between 0 and 30 VDC depending on the setting of P1, and should follow any changes of this setting to indicate that the variable voltage control is working properly. Turning P2 counter-clockwise should turn the LED on, indicating that the current limiter is in operation.

Please tell me your experiences, thoughts building this power supply at mixos@auth.gr