Searchable Part # Not On Product PCB

I’ve got one of your step up voltage regulators and that’s all I have. I’ve lost the packaging and wanted to purchase more of these awesome boards, but I want the exact same board as the one I have. Thus, I was hoping to find the part number on the PCB. Instead, printed on the PCB is the following:

reg12a
©2013

And that’s it. I tried the following search term in the Pololu web site search tool: “reg12a”, and netting nothing!

So, I suggest you start putting a searchable part number on the PCB, or add to your search engine, the terms that are printed on the board!

Try this: bit.ly/RAASQe

I don’t know if that’s the right part or not – worst case, scan the images of all the different converters in the right power range until you see the right one!

Hi.

I am sorry you had trouble identifying your regulator. Unfortunately, the regulator that jwatte’s link found is not the right one. We are working on making it easier to search our site for internal markings like the one you saw on your board.

The code “reg12a” is a PCB identifier. That particular code is used on the three products that use that PCB: U1V11F3, U1V11F5, and U1V11A. If you have an adjustable regulator, it should be U1V11A. If not, you could measure the output voltage of the regulator to determine which of the fixed output versions it is.

-Claire

This is a significant problem that comes up often with other Pololu products as well. For example, I have a couple of the LSM303xxx carrier boards, with different versions of the sensor, and it is extremely difficult to tell them apart.

In the future it would be great to have some unique identifier on PCBs, (perhaps a laser marking during final assembly?) so that if components change, customers can go back and figure out what they have. I’ve taken to marking some of my boards with indelible ink, but it is too easy to forget to do that.

Thanks for the additional feedback. The silkscreen marking on our boards that starts with “0J” is changed if any change is made to the PCB, so that should be useful in telling apart different versions of the same board, and products that use different components on the same PCB can often by differentiated by the text on the ICs (I’ll bring up the idea of adding those IC markings to product pages so that can be searchable as well).

On newer PCBs that are used for multiple products we are also starting to include a white rectangle on the silkscreen to make it easier for customers to mark the boards themselves. Unfortunately, I think in most cases it is not going to be practical to laser-etch the PCBs.

-Claire

I think this is the problem. For voltage converters, the only difference between two products might be the value of the voltage-setting resistors, which might be really hard to read…
If you can’t laser etch, then perhaps a sticker with the product number on each product would be super great IMO.

Thanks for the suggestion; we will keep it in mind.

-Claire