DIY is starting to be a PITA!

I was out of this scene for about ten years and finding that discrete devices and through hole  components are vanishing at a steady pace. Even with ICs less than 10% of them available in through hole packaging.

So finding myself relying on my old stash of semiconductors and buying passive components mostly. What are you doing out three. Invested in a hot air station? How do you prototype with that SMD mess?

P.S.: SMD is S&M

Jelly bean parts like 5532, 2N2904 are going to be the last to fall.  If you want to start hoarding the last great spec audio ICs in through hole now is probably the time, or maybe too late.  DIP adapter boards are available for some surface mount chips.  You can't stop progress so get what you need to be comfortable into your old age, and I'll share what parts I can. 

Fortunately there is not much call for SMD tubes so I don't have the SMT IC problem. I thought high voltage passives might be a problem but as long as there are SMPS I think I will be OK.

Cheers

Ian

I guess its true to say , because of the advent of Smps's we have loads of good modern high voltage electrolytics that we can use to renovate and build new valve stuff . I think I have heard of people using smt in and around the grid of tube circuits probably to reduce capacitance .  Id be wary in the modern age of what we badge as  'progress' ,to me its  more about industry streamlining production , cutting costs and quality in an era of throw away consumer electronics .  Look at the most desirable pieces of studio equipment ,  a lot of them are 40 ,50 ,60,70 years old , and every bit as relevent and usable now as they ever were . Judging the quality of an audio device by the number of 0's after the decimal point THD at a given level is only half the story .

SMD is not that bad, actually I think it is faster. Cutting the component legs take some time. Probably SMD parts are not as bad as they used to be. There is more innovation in SMD than in THC.

even in SMD parts there is problems of stock this days.

Wait for it...  ;D As through hole becomes obsoleted and made irrelevant by SMD it will become more attractive to phools just because it is obscure and rare...

Not here yet, but its coming.  8)

JR

JohnRoberts said:

Wait for it...  ;D As through hole becomes obsoleted and made irrelevant by SMD it will become more attractive to phools just because it is obscure and rare...

Not here yet, but its coming.  8)

JR

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Maybe I should keep all the old through hole components I have laying around for the next 40 years. Good retirement strategy? 

12afael said:

SMD is not that bad, actually I think it is faster. Cutting the component legs take some time. Probably SMD parts are not as bad as they used to be.

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Can you elaborate on how you prototype with SMD? I understand once you have a production PCB you can solder paster and make a quick job of soldering with the hot air station, but my frustration is specific to protying with out a ready made PCB.

It seems that one needs to put transistors and ICs on adapter boards and use those on the TH proto board. Then again I may not know enough, and just stuck on how I have been doing it for the last 40 years.

Thanks

iampoor1 said:

Maybe I should keep all the old through hole components I have laying around for the next 40 years. Good retirement strategy? 

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Ooh, my vintage LM741s and LM234s may command mojo bucks soon. Will early Fairchild parts be treated like Mullards?

tk@halmi said:

Can you elaborate on how you prototype with SMD? I understand once you have a production PCB you can solder paster and make a quick job of soldering with the hot air station, but my frustration is specific to protying with out a ready made PCB.

It seems that one needs to put transistors and ICs on adapter boards and use those on the TH proto board. Then again I may not know enough, and just stuck on how I have been doing it for the last 40 years.

Thanks

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Very carefully...  ;D

I have tried but it is all but impossible to cobble some modern SMD parts onto old through hole prototype boards.

The good news is that prototype smd PCB from china are reasonably priced.

JR

OK, I started spotting some SMD proto boards such as BusBoard.
Thanks

I have done some point to point work with smd but I understand it is difficult and not for everybody.

Pcbs today are cheap and are made "fast" . you can order it with stencil for extra 10-15 use. Hot gun or oven are ideals but soldering iron also work. Working at Darkglass I did arround 30 prototypes of amplifiers over 100 parts each. All of them soldered by hand with soldering iron. We used very rarely a protoboard. It is too messy with big circuits.

I had to convert a little thing to SMD recently, and actually it's not bad at all.  Once I figured out the package size thing I was able to buy "large" sized components which are easier to work with. A good pair of tweezers is definitely a must, but otherwise I'm actually liking the SMD assembly better than through-hole.  I was expecting to have to do the solder paste and toaster oven method, but really it's easy enough with my usual soldering iron and lead-free solder.

I don't know about other PCB layout packages but in Kicad there are 'hand solder' footprints for many common SMD parts that are larger than normal ones.

Cheers

Ian

You can't do this with through-hole parts  . Also I don't think they will ever go extinct. There will always be a need for higher voltage and higher wattage parts. One area that does concern me is discrete semiconductors, be it through-hole or SMD. More and more parts are becoming obsolete without any successors, particularly JFETs. OnSemi just dropped another bunch of SMD JFETs including the 5457 from their catalogue.

volker said:

You can't do this ...One area that does concern me is discrete semiconductors, be it through-hole or SMD. More and more parts are becoming obsolete without any successors, particularly JFETs. OnSemi just dropped another bunch of SMD JFETs including the 5457 from their catalogue.

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Nice work there dude! My old eyes can’t deal with that even with glasses. Might need to invest in a USB microscope or such...
Yes, JFETs are becoming boutique industry items, see InterFET and Linear Systems. On the other hand JFET input ICs are getting wickedly nice. I just looked at the OPA1641 and with its bootstrapped super low noise inputs that eliminate intermod distortion.

volker said:

You can't do this with through-hole parts  . Also I don't think they will ever go extinct. There will always be a need for higher voltage and higher wattage parts. One area that does concern me is discrete semiconductors, be it through-hole or SMD. More and more parts are becoming obsolete without any successors, particularly JFETs. OnSemi just dropped another bunch of SMD JFETs including the 5457 from their catalogue.

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I have watched this play out in slow motion over several decades.  There is probably more than one reason some discrete components are going away but obvious one is low sales. Why design a discrete circuit when off the shelf ICs can perform the task better and easier.  I used to manage a design engineering department, and we didn't have all the canned solutions available back then, but i would have used them if as good and mature as now. Back then the early ones were too expensive and not better than discrete. Now they are competitive or better in many cases.

Yes, you can DIY SMD assembly with an old school soldering iron with fine tip... I use a combination of iron and hot air for SMD rework... Iron to attach and then reflow with the hot air... surface tension of wet solder will center and align SMD components. Very fine lead pitch on some ICs can be a pain but solder wick can help clear bridges.

I have yet to DIY BGA packages (pads on bottom), but I have successfully soldered parts with heatsink on bottom, using some solder paste and hot air.

The future is like a tide coming in, resistance is futile.

JR

There have always been aspects of DIY that were a PITA for me, metal work comes to mind. 

pucho812 said:

There have always been aspects of DIY that were a PITA for me, metal work comes to mind.

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Drill press, Greenlee punches (thanks Doug!), and a nibbler tool for most stuff.  Faceplates that need engraving or square holes go to Front Panel Express.  I enjoy the measuring, marking, and drilling as much as I enjoy the soldering, wiring, and mounting. 

My girlfriend and I made drawers and a countertop for our kitchen prep table/breakfast bar today.  We are turning into a DIY couple!

But I am diverging from the OP's topic.  I am avoiding surface mount as much as I can in my repair work.  I don't have a hot air station (yet).  My side gig doing R&D is going to have some SMD so I will have to get acquainted with it eventually.  I think that the skills will transfer it's just the tools that are different.

OT again. I wonder if we should have a metal work accident log a bit like the shock log. Worst that I have ever done was hand drilling a 4mm hole into mild steel. Snapped the drill bit with too much pressure and jammed the broken stub straight into the middle of my thumb nail, punched a hole clean straight through. I always seem to leave a bit of blood somewhere in a chassis. I agree with using Greenlee punches and nibbler, those tools go a long way. I have cut out nice round meter holes with just those tools.