[sdiy] Trip to the Local Electronics Shop and Things SMD

[Scott Gravenhorst]

<philgallo at attglobal.net> wrote:
>Scott,
>
>I have found that a 16 bit ISA protoboard is either very expensive (because
>the vendor is maintaining the price that the board could fetch back in 1989)
>or the opposite (when a smart vendor notices something isn't moving).
>
>With all the Electronic Shops here in the LA area closing one by one, they
>are buying each others stock as "salvage".  

Pfft, maybe so, but the prices don't reflect it (at ITC).  I've looked at All
Electronics for proto stuff, but all they've had is pad per hole and I don't
do pad per hole very well (ham fists sometimes and half blind all the time).

>Usually i find that this stock
>is bargain priced.  When Sandy's in the "Valley" closed i picked up two 16
>bit AT protoboards for ~$8.00 US at my local electronic shop here in
>Torrance (still had Sandy's SKU sticker).  AT protoboards are so large in
>area that i bought them to cut down into smaller proto sheets.  Also i
>picked up quite a few SMT protoboards such as you describe paying no more
>than $9.00 ea.  These boards sell at our local Fry's Electronics for
>$40-50.00 US.
>
>Notably, the Velloman proto's are priced reasonably.

Yes, but the one I bought (called a eurocard) which was the ONLY one on the
rack less than $30.00, has a crappy etch layout.  Very nice tinning, but
crappy layout.  I like the ones where each IC location has an etch with 5
holes per pin so you can potentially connect 4 things to any IC pin.  This
one is a weird 3-holes-in-a-row-connected pattern, but the way the IC
straddles them, one of the holes for each pin on one side of the IC is
covered by the IC.  Not optimal, but I can manage.  It was 1/10 the price of
the ISA board, which was beautifully crafted, but just not worth that much
coin.  For $8 each, I'd have bought at least 2 of the ISA boards.

>
>regards,
>p
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>[mailto:owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl]On Behalf Of Scott Gravenhorst
>Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 2:15 PM
>To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>Subject: [sdiy] Trip to the Local Electronics Shop and Things SMD
>
>
>I was at ITC (Chatsworth, CA) today looking for prototyping board for my
>PCSYNTH project.  Oddly enough, I found a full size 16 bit ISA slot
>prototype board - for $68.00....  Uh, no.  So I bought a piece of regular
>etched stuff made by Velleman for $6.95 and I'll do my original idea of
>using a defunct EIDE card for it's edge connector.
>
>But I also spotted an SMD prototyping board.  I have very little details
>because frankly I have no interest in SMD (being visually impaired, it's
>hard enough to do through hole), however I shall describe what I saw:  A
>strip of board with etched patterns for several, (5 or 6) SMD devices, it
>looked like there were different patterns and numbers of pins, each pin has
>an etched land out to a solder pad/hole.  I didn't look at the price, nor
>can I give a manufacturer, I just didn't think to look at all that until I
>was half way home and it was already too late.  But it looks like this
>stuff exists for you people with SuperMan's eyeballs.
>

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-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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