An OPL3 sound card for RC2014/RCBus based computers, based on the Yamaha YMF262 and YAC512 ICs. This very popular IC combo was used on many very popular PC sound cards, e.g. the Sound Blaster 16 for music FM synthesis.
The Kicad project files for the board are available here: https://github.com/electrified/rcbus-opl3
Github actions and Kibot are used to produce gerbers and BOM etc - these are available here: https://electrified.github.io/rcbus-opl3-site/
Additionally the tweaked VGMPlay is available here: https://github.com/electrified/vgmplay
PCBWay Sponsorship
The first run of prototype PCBs was kindly provided by PCBWay! This was the first time I used their service, and I have been impressed with the process and the quality of the boards. I opted for purple boards with a HASL finish - the soldermask is quite opaque, it’s a nice finish though and the quality of the boards is high. They also managed to put their serial number / identifier under an IC footprint so it’s nicely concealed which not all the board houses manage!
I also ordered a stencil to go along with the PCB to allow me to use solder paste and do reflow soldering on a hotplate - this worked well.
I opted for the cheapest post option, and it was still pretty speedy to the UK, I’m not sure I’d bother paying for one of the more expensive options unless I was really in a rush.