seeing eye dog for old techs

A shout-out for a great service:

If you need full-custom electronics in your new tool, you know how hard it is to find the ICs you need in DIP packages. Everything now comes in "Small Outline" packages -- or smaller! I was getting pretty frustrated trying to solder 0.8mm-pitch ICs, and don't have the setup to glue down really small stuff (and don't even _talk_ about the .5mm TSOPs!). Not even the toaster oven method is safe on all chips like hall-effect sensors... fwiw.

Back in January, I found an outfit that makes "breakout boards" for every conceivable "small outline" and "surface mount" packaged IC you can name, adapting them to standard DIP outlines for prototyping. They have hundreds of styles in stock, fitting tens of thousands of ICs. And they're inexpensive

They not only sell the boards, but for a little more, they'll order your parts from DigiKey, solder them on the boards, put pins on the board so you can plug it into your protoboard, and ship it via any method you want. I ordered some boards populated with teensy little analog multiplexor chips with leads so close they looked like hair, back in January... about

4pm on that day. The next morning, they shipped! They had gotten the parts from DigiKey, installed them, and shipped the goods in about 14 hours! It's a great way to work with those little chips that eventually will go on your finished pcb without having to track down DIP versions (which might not even exist!). They are,
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-- they're Canadian, and I think they ship pretty much everywhere. In order to get your stuff installed, you first must locate your part from DigiKey, and identify what "package outline" it uses. Then you go on proto-advantage's site, and look up the breakout board for that package and pin count. When you go to order the breakout board, you'll get a chance to enter your DigiKey part number, and have THEM order and install it for you. If you have any questions, they are quick and helpful with email replies. I was getting to the point where I could no longer solder those fine- pitch ICs (Heck! I couldn't even SEE 'em anymore). Now I 'can'. Lloyd
Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh
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If you haven't used an assembly microscope, try it. It makes all the difference in the world.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Tim Wescott fired this volley in news:xtednYaL- MYFZ-LMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I have one. That's not the problem. I don't have the setup to do masked infra-red soldering on sensitive chips. I can do the 'toaster' thing with no problem (proto-advantage sells solder-paste masks, too), but can't manage the delicate stuff.

When it comes time to actually populate a finished PCB, I farm that out for cheap, but for prototyping, this is easy, quick, and guaranteed.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Even a decent ring lighted magnifier lamp is a huge help, and a lot cheaper.

Reply to
Pete C.

"Pete C." fired this volley in news:5180122c$0 $11330$ snipped-for-privacy@ngroups.net:

I'm sorry, but I have to ask: Do you guys miss the point a lot at home?

I'm talking about _prototyping_, not making a finished PCB.

If I want to jump these little chips up on an ACE board to see who they are, would I _actually_ go to the trouble of making a full-up PCB just to do protyping work?

The PCB comes _after_ the hand-built prototype -- AFTER you're sure it works the way you want.

Geesh! Doesn't anybody design their own circuitry, or are you all "kit" guys?

(harumph!) Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

We don't (yet) pay others to solder the chips onto the prototype adapter boards. Also some folks do the PCB milling rapid prototyping and don't use adapter boards.

Reply to
Pete C.

"Pete C." fired this volley in news:51802306$0 $11521$ snipped-for-privacy@ngroups.net:

I see... I suggest you try that with 0.5mm pitch (on-center) TSOPs, and see how it works.

Mill-prototyping on FR-4 breaks down around 30 mils o/c. The runs start lifting, because the epoxy isn't strong enough to support the lateral forces of the milling.

(I do that, too. 'have the CAD. 'have the CAM. 'have the mill. 'have small-tipped carbide Vee cutters.)

It's apparent that you're "aware that people do it", but never have.

'least, that is the way I see it.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

These days it often makes sense to go straight to a PCB. If it doesn't work right you change the C code or the VHDL. ;-)

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Yea, I have, yea, it's a pain.

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I haven't tried the PCB milling yet, since I haven't done a lot of electronics projects of late. The last one I looked at I was just going to farm out to a PCB house for prototype boards, but that project didn't go through.

Reply to
Pete C.

"Pete C." fired this volley in news:51802f4b$0 $24415$ snipped-for-privacy@ngroups.net:

yeah, it's a pain just soldering them -- but I was referring to trying to MILL a PCB with 0.5mm pitch devices. It's just not worth it.

Despite the many objections, if you actually want to build a 'library' of parts for prototyping, the extra buck or two per chip to have them installed on the carriers is a nice way to proceed. If you want the board "fully assembled" (headers, etc), it's more expensive; but not prohibitively, at least at what my time and failures are worth.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

I use a 5 diopter glass fluorescent ring magnifier and it's difficult to see around the 9-1/2" overall diameter of the shade/housing.

Seeing detail is a lot easier, but reaching for something nearby is still problematic, at least for me.

I was just examining an early model of a battery pack charger from about

2002 which had a considerable amount of wire-wrapping gage wire jumpers all over the place, and the same wire was even used to tack leads onto surface mount devices which were then tacked onto other component terminals.. good grief. This charger was for the latest & greatest military tactical xenon arc lamp flashlight back then. I wouldn't have been able to do that assembly work since my 20s and maybe into my 30s.

The same board that was being used to power the flashlight was heavily modified to act as a separate external accessory charger board.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

I've been hand-soldering circuits that I had often designed since the

70's, using skywiring, wire-wrap, T-Tech mechanically engraved boards and Mil-Spec multilayer PCBs.

An Optivisor with the 14" lens works best for me, partly because unlike the microscope or video screen magnifier it let me roll the board around to see the solder reflection or lack of it and the meniscus at the end of a properly bonded flat pack lead from several angles. I used higher magnification to inspect those 0.5mm pitch leads that are common in digital radios and the Segway.

If you think they are tiny and difficult try bare ICs. I've spliced broken wirebonds with silver-filled epoxy.

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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Try mechanically-bonded Duroid.

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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Hey Speff,

English PLEASE !!1 What are these terms??? OK..PCB I got, but C-code? VHDL ????

Brian Lawson ( really still back at DTL stuff)

and ........ aaaacchooooo. !!!!! Bought a cold at NAMES I think.

Reply to
Brian Lawson

I believe

C code = C programming language (processors) VHDL = Virtual Hardware Descriptor Language (programmable gate arrays and more advanced programmable hardware)

Reply to
Pete C.

I have two aids I use. One is a Third Hand, a pair of movable roa...um, alligator clips on ball-jointed arms and a 4" magnifying glass, all on a weighted stand.

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The other is the ring-fluor mag lamp. I bought it for $30 at HF a dozen years ago and it still works great. (They're up to $40 now, Tim.)

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

We younger solderless breadboarders still need diopter help, y'know. Harumph, too!

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Larry Jaques fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Heh... I guess this whole thing has 'gone over the heads' of the group (et. al.)

Guys, I was a HAM at 14 (de WA4ZEG, back when you had to know something, AND the code), co-owner of a successful TV/electronics repair shop when I was 16, and director of reasearch for a fairly large regional medical electronics/computers company at age 32. For those of you who remember them, I designed the Lt. Kernal hard disk system for Commodore 64/128 computers (back in the 80s). I'm 63 now.

I have not stopped designing and building custom PCBs and new circuits in all that time -- not even for a week. I probably design more new boards each year than all the rest of the regulars here, combined. And I have all the tools and the skills and the instruments (scopes, meters, signal generators, logic analyzers...), INCLUDING the equipment to do infrared reflow soldering -- at standard ROHS thermal profiles, or with leaded pastes.

I have a better binocular assembly microscope than I ever deserved getting (got it in a bankruptcy sale). I have clamps, 'third hands', micro-clips and manipulators, hemostats on swiveling bases... all the stuff.

But none of the above equipment supplies a person with what's needed to do 'masked' IR reflow, where the body of the chip may not be heated, only the leads. (I know, you guys would put a germanium IR detector chip through a wave soldering process... but I wouldn't)

And, NONE OF this discussion has been about building finished circuitry. It's been about bench-top prototyping. Anyone who suggested milling a custom board just to examine a prototype idea, or to explore a new chip's functions is just weird, and wrong, and has WAY too much time to waste.

Since I need custom circuitry in every piece of automation I sell, I need to do this a lot, and having to stop, design, and do isolation milling of a different board every time I want to evaluate a chip would just be a stupid waste of my time and my clients' money.

I thought (from all the past bragging) that there were some serious, component-level designers here. I was clearly wrong about that.

I really regret trying to pass on what I thought would be a favor. Please forget I mentioned it.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

At least you probably won't forget you mentioned it.

Readers might've been impessed if the rant was posted to an electronics design group/forum.

Most anyone has found things that make their life/job/hobby easier, but most don't post 'em to a metalworking group, and expect anyone reading it to express their deep felt gratitude as if you were handing out $100 bills.

Grip, reality.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

"Wild_Bill" fired this volley in news:8L7gt.127575$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-16.dc.easynews.com:

A machining group where many of the participants have, or are interested in doing CNC conversions, and who make machinery (which often needs custome electronics).

The whole statement was prefaced with "If you need full-custom electronics in your new machine...".

Grip, reality.

You must be a purely water-powered, line shaft sort of machinist.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

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