Home lab parts

[George Herold]

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 5:15:13 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-06 17:07, George Herold wrote:
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 3:27:19 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:18, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 10:07:13 PM UTC-5, speff wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 February 2020 11:42:51 UTC-5, George Herold
wrote:
Hi all, so this is a fun question. I'm buying a bunch of parts
from mouser for a home lab. ('Cause they have the laser diodes I
want.) So I favor through hole parts, (for proto-typing) R's,
C's, transistors...

R's- 1% MF 0.25W 10,30,...300k, 1M, 10M, 100M (the last two not
MF.) C's- COG's 1 pf to ?0.01 uF (1, 3.3, 10..) X7R 0.1uF bypass
caps Al-electro 100uF/ 100V

2n4401/03 2n7000 lnd150 lm317, LM337

What else am I going to want? (forgetting)

George H.

Hi, George

There are some really cool Chinese kits with all kinds of sensors
an Arduino Uno clone, motors, solderless breadboard, alpha LCD
display and so on for less than $30, all in one plastic box the
size of a book. Amazon has them. Arduino is a good way to prototype
with chips that need SPI or I2C to configure them, many of the
manufacturers supply code and it's dead simple to use with the free
IDE.

Thanks Speff, I do have an old arduino kit or two, I got for my some
a few years ago..


For random jellybean parts I suggest diodes like 1N4148, BAT54
(smt), 1N5819. Transistors 2N4401/3, MPSA42, 2N7000, BSS84, AO3400,
AO3401, or their SMT equivalents in the first few cases. A few
regulators. LM324/358 op-amps. Some good op-amps like AD8676. Some
rail-to-rail input/output op-amps, maybe a couple high voltage
rail-to-rail in/out op-amps, some zero-drift op-amps. An
instrumentation amplifier or two.

Don't go nuts on the more expensive stuff, chances are if you have
a project going there will be one or more parts you'll need to buy
even if it's some oddball resistor, so you're paying for the
shipping anyway and you may as well use Digikey or Mouser as your
stockroom. It really doesn't make sense to try to stock
everything.

It's probably worthwhile to buy some resistor kits and ceramic
capacitor kits and electrolytic capacitor kits maybe if you use
them (I do).
Yeah I've become less of a tant. cap fan over the years.

With the wide range of ESR available in alpo caps, you can find
something to suit just about any regulator. I use tants in protos
because I have hundreds in the drawer, but I very rarely design them
into anything these days.

Alpos rock. (100% aluminum and aluminum byproducts.)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to tant's.

So we had an old instrument... no longer made, but still
supported. ~2-30 yrs old. I got one back that stopped working...
PS rail shorted. I traced it down to a tant.
16V tant on a 15V rail. There were ~100 tant's in each instrument.
~200 instruments... That is the one old time tant failure I know
about. Would anyone pass a 16V tant on 15V rail these days?

George H.

A _hundred_ tants in each instrument? What was it, ENIAC?

Hmm well there were a bunch stitched into power supplies on each board.
~four supplies per board, a few tants per supply rail, maybe less than 100.
more than ten. An RF amp board, wide power traces and lotsa
caps.

George H.
I still remember being surprised by the 16V rating on the cap.
(not my design.) At the same time I'd use 16V Al's in
15V supplies. Is that still done, or do you derate Al's too?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-02-06 15:20, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-06 16:25, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath
wrote:
Thanks Clifford. I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.) I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you
can't just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads.
I rarely turn one over.

CH
One super-nice proto solution for faster stuff is blob board with 0.5-mm
pitch in the X direction and 0.65 in Y, plus a ground plane on the back
and ground vias every so often.

What is blob board? Squares that are pre-tinned?

I used to buy those off eBay, but the seller went away so I'll have to
lay out my own, I expect.

Then maybe make extras and see how yours sell on EBay. If they become a
hot commodity rename your company to "ElectoOptical Innovations and Blob
Board LLC"

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-02-06 19:04, Joerg wrote:

On 2020-02-06 15:20, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 16:25, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath
wrote:
Thanks Clifford.  I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.)  I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you
can't just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads.
I rarely turn one over.

CH

One super-nice proto solution for faster stuff is blob board with 0.5-mm
pitch in the X direction and 0.65 in Y, plus a ground plane on the back
and ground vias every so often.


What is blob board? Squares that are pre-tinned?

Yup. You make solder bridges to connect nearby stuff, and use wires for
further away. It makes it possible to do good hand-wired protos with
TSSOPs and SC70s and DFNs and so on (QFNs are more of a problem). I did
my first pHEMT/SiGe:C NPN cascode that way--it worked well up to about 6
mA drain current, and then started oscillating around 12 GHz.

I used to buy those off eBay, but the seller went away so I'll have to
lay out my own, I expect.


Then maybe make extras and see how yours sell on EBay. If they become a
hot commodity rename your company to "ElectoOptical Innovations and Blob
Board LLC"

If I do my own, they'll be 0.8 mm thick with a ground plane on the back,
with blue solder mask and the EOI logo in ENIG (bling bling).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Chris Jones]

On 07/02/2020 03:35, Piglet wrote:

On 06/02/2020 15:55, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 2:54:39 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-05 11:42, George Herold wrote:
Hi all, so this is a fun question.
I'm buying a bunch of parts from mouser for a home lab.
('Cause they have the laser diodes I want.)
So I favor through hole parts, (for proto-typing)
R's, C's, transistors...

R's- 1% MF 0.25W 10,30,...300k, 1M, 10M, 100M
(the last two not MF.)
C's- COG's 1 pf to ?0.01 uF (1, 3.3, 10..)
X7R 0.1uF bypass caps
Al-electro 100uF/ 100V

2n4401/03
2n7000
lnd150
lm317, LM337

What else am I going to want? (forgetting)

George H.

For lowish speed stuff, how about:

Transistors:
MPSA18       superbeta NPN
PN4250A       quiet PNP with good beta
D44H11        low sat NPN TO-220
D45H11        low sat PNP TO-220
CPH3910        SMT but no home should be without them
BFS17A

Op amps and comparators:  (I use a lot of duals)
LM358          dual jellybean class B op amp
LM393          dual OC comparator, ~1us
MC33078           4.5 nV noise bipolar dual (high Ibias but super cheap)
TCA0372        1.5A power op amp
TL082        FET
OPA2188        HV chopper--use a Bellin Systems SO8-DIP breakout
(there aren't any good dual choppers in DIP packages)

diodes
1N5817         1A Schottky
1N5823      3A Schottky
1N4148      gold-doped
MBD301      SS Schottky
1N4007        1 kV rectifier (slow)

Vregs
LP2951        Good enough for a voltage reference in many cases
LM1117        Lower voltage but low dropout, accurate voltage

MG Chemicals 835 RA flux pen

  From eBay:
Cu-clad board
Kester 44 solder
BNC bulkhead connectors
5-way binding posts
banana plugs (some are decent, many are junk--YMMV)
BNC patch cords
#24 stranded PVC-insulated hook-up wire

Cheers

Phil Hobbs
Thanks Phil.. I nice list.  I'm not going heavy into parts, cause the
whole idea could crash and burn if the photon flux from the DL's is less
than I measured before... (or I made a mistake before, most likely)

George H.

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com


My tuppence-worth:

A couple each 4066/4053/4051 analog switches and couple each CMOS logic
4001 4011 4013 4017 4093 - old slow 4000 series because it is flexible
enough for when analog meets digital proof of concept tinkering and can
be used to 18V.

If you're going to do that, include some 4007. (The CMOS chips, not the
diodes, though you want those as well.) 4007 is more versatile when you
want to do something unusual.

Also, if you are getting 4066, better get some 4016 as well (or
instead). If you are using either of those, you must not be very
interested in ON resistance, and the 4016 has the advantage of not
having the complicated back-gate switching circuit, that can inject
charge from the supply rail each time it switches, especially if they
did not take adequate care of break-before-make switching of the
backgate. Look at the internal circuits in the datasheet, though that is
quite likely wrong too.

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 7/2/20 10:20 am, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-06 16:25, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath
wrote:
Thanks Clifford.  I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.)  I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you
can't just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads.
I rarely turn one over.

CH
One super-nice proto solution for faster stuff is blob board with 0.5-mm
pitch in the X direction and 0.65 in Y, plus a ground plane on the back
and ground vias every so often.

That sounds nice. It's basically what I use the perf board for, but has
a ground plane.

Don't you have issues with copper lifting though? Perf board prevents that.

CH

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-02-06 20:29, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 7/2/20 10:20 am, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 16:25, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath
wrote:
Thanks Clifford.  I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.)  I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you
can't just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads.
I rarely turn one over.

CH
One super-nice proto solution for faster stuff is blob board with
0.5-mm pitch in the X direction and 0.65 in Y, plus a ground plane on
the back and ground vias every so often.

That sounds nice. It's basically what I use the perf board for, but has
a ground plane.

Don't you have issues with copper lifting though? Perf board prevents that.

You need a light touch with the iron, but that's easy with a Metcal.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 14:07:54 -0800 (PST), George Herold
<ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 3:27:19 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:18, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 10:07:13 PM UTC-5, speff wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 February 2020 11:42:51 UTC-5, George Herold
wrote:
Hi all, so this is a fun question. I'm buying a bunch of parts
from mouser for a home lab. ('Cause they have the laser diodes I
want.) So I favor through hole parts, (for proto-typing) R's,
C's, transistors...

R's- 1% MF 0.25W 10,30,...300k, 1M, 10M, 100M (the last two not
MF.) C's- COG's 1 pf to ?0.01 uF (1, 3.3, 10..) X7R 0.1uF bypass
caps Al-electro 100uF/ 100V

2n4401/03 2n7000 lnd150 lm317, LM337

What else am I going to want? (forgetting)

George H.

Hi, George

There are some really cool Chinese kits with all kinds of sensors
an Arduino Uno clone, motors, solderless breadboard, alpha LCD
display and so on for less than $30, all in one plastic box the
size of a book. Amazon has them. Arduino is a good way to prototype
with chips that need SPI or I2C to configure them, many of the
manufacturers supply code and it's dead simple to use with the free
IDE.

Thanks Speff, I do have an old arduino kit or two, I got for my some
a few years ago..


For random jellybean parts I suggest diodes like 1N4148, BAT54
(smt), 1N5819. Transistors 2N4401/3, MPSA42, 2N7000, BSS84, AO3400,
AO3401, or their SMT equivalents in the first few cases. A few
regulators. LM324/358 op-amps. Some good op-amps like AD8676. Some
rail-to-rail input/output op-amps, maybe a couple high voltage
rail-to-rail in/out op-amps, some zero-drift op-amps. An
instrumentation amplifier or two.

Don't go nuts on the more expensive stuff, chances are if you have
a project going there will be one or more parts you'll need to buy
even if it's some oddball resistor, so you're paying for the
shipping anyway and you may as well use Digikey or Mouser as your
stockroom. It really doesn't make sense to try to stock
everything.

It's probably worthwhile to buy some resistor kits and ceramic
capacitor kits and electrolytic capacitor kits maybe if you use
them (I do).
Yeah I've become less of a tant. cap fan over the years.

With the wide range of ESR available in alpo caps, you can find
something to suit just about any regulator. I use tants in protos
because I have hundreds in the drawer, but I very rarely design them
into anything these days.

Alpos rock. (100% aluminum and aluminum byproducts.)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to tant's.

So we had an old instrument... no longer made, but still
supported. ~2-30 yrs old. I got one back that stopped working...
PS rail shorted. I traced it down to a tant.
16V tant on a 15V rail. There were ~100 tant's in each instrument.
~200 instruments... That is the one old time tant failure I know
about. Would anyone pass a 16V tant on 15V rail these days?

Tants are nice when you want a bit of ESR. Just derate them 3:1 on
voltage across a power rail.

Regulators and opamps also tend to be stable if you put a lot of very
low ESR polymer cap across their outputs.

It's the Jim Williams approach to control loops. A big enough cap will
stabilize anything.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-02-06 21:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 14:07:54 -0800 (PST), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 3:27:19 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:18, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 10:07:13 PM UTC-5, speff wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 February 2020 11:42:51 UTC-5, George Herold
wrote:
Hi all, so this is a fun question. I'm buying a bunch of parts
from mouser for a home lab. ('Cause they have the laser diodes I
want.) So I favor through hole parts, (for proto-typing) R's,
C's, transistors...

R's- 1% MF 0.25W 10,30,...300k, 1M, 10M, 100M (the last two not
MF.) C's- COG's 1 pf to ?0.01 uF (1, 3.3, 10..) X7R 0.1uF bypass
caps Al-electro 100uF/ 100V

2n4401/03 2n7000 lnd150 lm317, LM337

What else am I going to want? (forgetting)

George H.

Hi, George

There are some really cool Chinese kits with all kinds of sensors
an Arduino Uno clone, motors, solderless breadboard, alpha LCD
display and so on for less than $30, all in one plastic box the
size of a book. Amazon has them. Arduino is a good way to prototype
with chips that need SPI or I2C to configure them, many of the
manufacturers supply code and it's dead simple to use with the free
IDE.

Thanks Speff, I do have an old arduino kit or two, I got for my some
a few years ago..


For random jellybean parts I suggest diodes like 1N4148, BAT54
(smt), 1N5819. Transistors 2N4401/3, MPSA42, 2N7000, BSS84, AO3400,
AO3401, or their SMT equivalents in the first few cases. A few
regulators. LM324/358 op-amps. Some good op-amps like AD8676. Some
rail-to-rail input/output op-amps, maybe a couple high voltage
rail-to-rail in/out op-amps, some zero-drift op-amps. An
instrumentation amplifier or two.

Don't go nuts on the more expensive stuff, chances are if you have
a project going there will be one or more parts you'll need to buy
even if it's some oddball resistor, so you're paying for the
shipping anyway and you may as well use Digikey or Mouser as your
stockroom. It really doesn't make sense to try to stock
everything.

It's probably worthwhile to buy some resistor kits and ceramic
capacitor kits and electrolytic capacitor kits maybe if you use
them (I do).
Yeah I've become less of a tant. cap fan over the years.

With the wide range of ESR available in alpo caps, you can find
something to suit just about any regulator. I use tants in protos
because I have hundreds in the drawer, but I very rarely design them
into anything these days.

Alpos rock. (100% aluminum and aluminum byproducts.)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to tant's.

So we had an old instrument... no longer made, but still
supported. ~2-30 yrs old. I got one back that stopped working...
PS rail shorted. I traced it down to a tant.
16V tant on a 15V rail. There were ~100 tant's in each instrument.
~200 instruments... That is the one old time tant failure I know
about. Would anyone pass a 16V tant on 15V rail these days?

Tants are nice when you want a bit of ESR. Just derate them 3:1 on
voltage across a power rail.

Regulators and opamps also tend to be stable if you put a lot of very
low ESR polymer cap across their outputs.

It's the Jim Williams approach to control loops. A big enough cap will
stabilize anything.

Sometimes they only look stable, because the oscillation amplitude is
too small to see easily. A 1-ohm resistor in series with VCC will tell
the tale--the supply current goes through the roof.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

On Fri, 7 Feb 2020 10:38:20 -0500, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2020-02-06 21:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 14:07:54 -0800 (PST), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 3:27:19 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:18, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 10:07:13 PM UTC-5, speff wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 February 2020 11:42:51 UTC-5, George Herold
wrote:
Hi all, so this is a fun question. I'm buying a bunch of parts
from mouser for a home lab. ('Cause they have the laser diodes I
want.) So I favor through hole parts, (for proto-typing) R's,
C's, transistors...

R's- 1% MF 0.25W 10,30,...300k, 1M, 10M, 100M (the last two not
MF.) C's- COG's 1 pf to ?0.01 uF (1, 3.3, 10..) X7R 0.1uF bypass
caps Al-electro 100uF/ 100V

2n4401/03 2n7000 lnd150 lm317, LM337

What else am I going to want? (forgetting)

George H.

Hi, George

There are some really cool Chinese kits with all kinds of sensors
an Arduino Uno clone, motors, solderless breadboard, alpha LCD
display and so on for less than $30, all in one plastic box the
size of a book. Amazon has them. Arduino is a good way to prototype
with chips that need SPI or I2C to configure them, many of the
manufacturers supply code and it's dead simple to use with the free
IDE.

Thanks Speff, I do have an old arduino kit or two, I got for my some
a few years ago..


For random jellybean parts I suggest diodes like 1N4148, BAT54
(smt), 1N5819. Transistors 2N4401/3, MPSA42, 2N7000, BSS84, AO3400,
AO3401, or their SMT equivalents in the first few cases. A few
regulators. LM324/358 op-amps. Some good op-amps like AD8676. Some
rail-to-rail input/output op-amps, maybe a couple high voltage
rail-to-rail in/out op-amps, some zero-drift op-amps. An
instrumentation amplifier or two.

Don't go nuts on the more expensive stuff, chances are if you have
a project going there will be one or more parts you'll need to buy
even if it's some oddball resistor, so you're paying for the
shipping anyway and you may as well use Digikey or Mouser as your
stockroom. It really doesn't make sense to try to stock
everything.

It's probably worthwhile to buy some resistor kits and ceramic
capacitor kits and electrolytic capacitor kits maybe if you use
them (I do).
Yeah I've become less of a tant. cap fan over the years.

With the wide range of ESR available in alpo caps, you can find
something to suit just about any regulator. I use tants in protos
because I have hundreds in the drawer, but I very rarely design them
into anything these days.

Alpos rock. (100% aluminum and aluminum byproducts.)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to tant's.

So we had an old instrument... no longer made, but still
supported. ~2-30 yrs old. I got one back that stopped working...
PS rail shorted. I traced it down to a tant.
16V tant on a 15V rail. There were ~100 tant's in each instrument.
~200 instruments... That is the one old time tant failure I know
about. Would anyone pass a 16V tant on 15V rail these days?

Tants are nice when you want a bit of ESR. Just derate them 3:1 on
voltage across a power rail.

Regulators and opamps also tend to be stable if you put a lot of very
low ESR polymer cap across their outputs.

It's the Jim Williams approach to control loops. A big enough cap will
stabilize anything.

Sometimes they only look stable, because the oscillation amplitude is
too small to see easily. A 1-ohm resistor in series with VCC will tell
the tale--the supply current goes through the roof.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sure, if you want to do something like this, it's sensible to try it
first. I inject a current square wave into the output and look at
transient response vs amount of load and big cap value.

I don't know that I entirely trust Spice models here, even if there is
one.

RRO amps tend to be happy with low ESR loads because the comp cap has
one end on the output pin. Older voltage regs have low loop gain.

Poly alum caps are great, so we need to figure out how to use them.

Here's the VH regulator for my tiny pulse generator, output near zero
to 45 volts. C5 is a 56 uF polymer.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k426sc6m1148x2j/OPA547_VH.jpg?raw=1

Looks like the optimum value for R3 is zero.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Klaus Kragelund]

Www.lcsc.com

 

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 19:42:48 UTC, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-06 11:22, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 06.02.20 um 15:40 schrieb Phil Hobbs:

Yuck, perf board--my least favourite method of prototyping.

Perf board is super slow, as you say, but worse than that, the protos
are flaky and the grounds are always iffy.

No. GND on perf board can be excellent.

If you use something like Vector 8007, which has a ground plane on the
component side, sure. In my experience very few people do. Plane perf
board with wired grounds is horrible--not as bad as white proto boards,
but not that far off.

Nothing is as bad as white proto boards Except the odd variants with peculiar layouts.

And there is nothing flaky.

Seriously? You can easily get five wires onto a DIP pin in dead-bug
mode, and it's trivially easy to inspect. Not so perf board.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Perf board's sole upside is that it's there on the shelf ready to use. For little circuits & doodads that's great. For anything demanding, make a pcb.


NT

 

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 20:41:38 UTC, Michael Terrell wrote:

A local company has a lot of component kits for beginners: http://vakits.com/ They have a retail store in NE Ocala as well. The address in on their website. One kit for everyone would cost more and have a lot of stuff that most people would never use. Maybe Analog, Digital and Power supply component kits would work.

I still have some pats I bought over 50 years ago as parts of kits, just to get a few that I needed. Over 1000 Akro-mills plastic drawers of oddball components ad hardware cover a couple carts and one eight foot workbench that could be put to better use.

I used to win bets, when someone would come to my home shop and wave an obsolete part in my face "I usually had something they could use. One guy bet me $20, that there was n way that I had any of those old, stud mounted 8mF, 450 VDC military capacitors. I took his $20 and sold him one cap for $6. I had about 20. ;-)

Wish I still had the very first grab-bag I bought. Lots of 1950s semicons on long obsolete packages.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-02-08 16:27, tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 19:42:48 UTC, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:22, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 06.02.20 um 15:40 schrieb Phil Hobbs:

Yuck, perf board--my least favourite method of prototyping.

Perf board is super slow, as you say, but worse than that, the protos
are flaky and the grounds are always iffy.

No. GND on perf board can be excellent.

If you use something like Vector 8007, which has a ground plane on the
component side, sure. In my experience very few people do. Plane perf
board with wired grounds is horrible--not as bad as white proto boards,
but not that far off.

Nothing is as bad as white proto boards Except the odd variants with peculiar layouts.


And there is nothing flaky.

Seriously? You can easily get five wires onto a DIP pin in dead-bug
mode, and it's trivially easy to inspect. Not so perf board.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Perf board's sole upside is that it's there on the shelf ready to use. For little circuits & doodads that's great. For anything demanding, make a pcb.

Dead bug rules.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:25:50 UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:

Thanks Clifford. I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.) I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you can't
just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads. I
rarely turn one over.

CH

They made sense decades ago when removing parts for re-use was necessary. Now having to take your products apart makes no sense.


NT

 

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 22:07:58 UTC, George Herold wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 3:27:19 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-02-06 11:18, George Herold wrote:

Yeah I've become less of a tant. cap fan over the years.

With the wide range of ESR available in alpo caps, you can find
something to suit just about any regulator. I use tants in protos
because I have hundreds in the drawer, but I very rarely design them
into anything these days.

Alpos rock. (100% aluminum and aluminum byproducts.)
Yeah, I don't know what happened to tant's.

So we had an old instrument... no longer made, but still
supported. ~2-30 yrs old. I got one back that stopped working...
PS rail shorted. I traced it down to a tant.
16V tant on a 15V rail. There were ~100 tant's in each instrument.
~200 instruments... That is the one old time tant failure I know
about. Would anyone pass a 16V tant on 15V rail these days?

George H.

Tants have had too many failures. Al electros fail too but don't normally short or explode. Max 1/3 rated v on tants is the rule now. If healed after construction they can take more, but that's mostly not done.


NT

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-02-08 13:34, tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:25:50 UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 7/2/20 3:11 am, George Herold wrote:
On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8:35:31 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:

Thanks Clifford. I don't like those PCB's with grids of holes for
prototyping.. (i get lost flipping it over.) I still will use my
white proto push board to test some simple (slow) thing.

I've wasted too many hours debugging those plug-in things, and you can't
just drag them from a storage box and expect things to work.

The SMD components solder on top of the grid board, between the pads. I
rarely turn one over.

CH

They made sense decades ago when removing parts for re-use was necessary. Now having to take your products apart makes no sense.

That depends. For example, an 8-stage crystal filter that cost me
severla hundred wasn't left idle in an older box when I needed it in a
newer one. Same with pricey sampling diodes and such.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-02-08 13:32, tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, 6 February 2020 20:41:38 UTC, Michael Terrell wrote:

A local company has a lot of component kits for beginners:
http://vakits.com/ They have a retail store in NE Ocala as well.
The address in on their website. One kit for everyone would cost
more and have a lot of stuff that most people would never use.
Maybe Analog, Digital and Power supply component kits would work.

I still have some pats I bought over 50 years ago as parts of kits,
just to get a few that I needed. Over 1000 Akro-mills plastic
drawers of oddball components ad hardware cover a couple carts and
one eight foot workbench that could be put to better use.

I used to win bets, when someone would come to my home shop and
wave an obsolete part in my face "I usually had something they
could use. One guy bet me $20, that there was n way that I had any
of those old, stud mounted 8mF, 450 VDC military capacitors. I took
his $20 and sold him one cap for $6. I had about 20. ;-)

Wish I still had the very first grab-bag I bought. Lots of 1950s
semicons on long obsolete packages.

If you feel the urge to experiment with Ge seminconductors you can get
Russky versions on EBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-MP25A-USSR-PNP-Ge-Transistor-25-hfe-20-50/174154920721

Amerikanski as well:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-New-Unused-NOS-1950s-Sylvania-1N118A-Ge-Diode-f-Old-Vintage-Crystal-Receiver/392675102797

Ge diodes like the 1N60 might still be in production. Though one has to
be careful, some also come as Schottky with the same part number.

https://www.posttenebraslab.ch/wiki/_media/projects/diodegermanium-1n60-0_3v.pdf

Of course, for the real vintage feel a diode has to be in a black
painted glass case:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-pcs-OA7-gold-bonded-germanium-diodes-black-glass-case-for-chrystal-radio/312979752582

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[rangerssuck]

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-5, Joerg wrote:

I don't like dead bugging because the pin orders are always mirrored. So
I cut small snippets of wood, copperclad or whatever, and glue the
snippets and then the parts to larger copperclad. Then it's "living bug
style", still on top and the pin order is as in the datasheet.

For dead bugging with DIP packages, I often just bend the pins 180° so that I can stick the chip down face up. I sometimes cringe thinking about busted off pins, but in over 40 years of doing this, I've yet to have one break.

Early on I used the (washed) wooden sticks of ice cream on a stick and
cut them up. The kind with nut and almond chunks in there:

Since I have something of an addiction, I have piles of Popsicle sticks that I use for all sorts of things. You can cut, file or sand them into whatever shape you need, too.

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-02-12 12:58, rangerssuck wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-5, Joerg wrote:

I don't like dead bugging because the pin orders are always
mirrored. So I cut small snippets of wood, copperclad or whatever,
and glue the snippets and then the parts to larger copperclad. Then
it's "living bug style", still on top and the pin order is as in
the datasheet.

For dead bugging with DIP packages, I often just bend the pins 180°
so that I can stick the chip down face up. I sometimes cringe
thinking about busted off pins, but in over 40 years of doing this,
I've yet to have one break.

I did, very early on as a kid. It was an RF transistor, the most
expensive component I owned and I had only that one. Almost five bucks
or several weeks of allowance back then which really peeved me.

Early on I used the (washed) wooden sticks of ice cream on a stick
and cut them up. The kind with nut and almond chunks in there:

Since I have something of an addiction, I have piles of Popsicle
sticks that I use for all sorts of things. You can cut, file or sand
them into whatever shape you need, too.

Dentists are probably benefiting the most from the products of popsicle
manufacturers. Next up would be insulin manufacturers ...

I've also got a sweet tooth put I try hard to suppress it. One wee piece
of not very sweet chocolate after dinner, that's it.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Chris Jones]

On 13/02/2020 07:58, rangerssuck wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 2:12:16 PM UTC-5, Joerg wrote:

I don't like dead bugging because the pin orders are always mirrored. So
I cut small snippets of wood, copperclad or whatever, and glue the
snippets and then the parts to larger copperclad. Then it's "living bug
style", still on top and the pin order is as in the datasheet.

For dead bugging with DIP packages, I often just bend the pins 180° so that I can stick the chip down face up. I sometimes cringe thinking about busted off pins, but in over 40 years of doing this, I've yet to have one break.

Bending the leads 90 degrees (so that the leadframe is all in one plane,
like it was before the manufacturer bent it) is sufficient and less
risky than 180 degrees. Works with SO-8 too. With care, you can avoid
shorts to the groundplane, and if you don't want to have to exercise
care, put down some strips of Kapton tape onto the groundplane
beforehand, where required.

I certainly prefer the package markings to be face-up, because I have a
terrible memory and will lose the diagrams etc. and will want to know
which chip I used.