[sdiy] Future SMD breadboard/prototying system (want one?)

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow All.
         I've only just caught up with this thread. I've been off world. 
Trying to prevent the Thargons from destroying the Earth as usual. It's a 
long story but you're all relatively safe now. Except I'm going to have to 
leave the job of getting rid of your own evil leaders up to you. But 
anyway, That's my excuse for chiming in late.

I have, for a number of years been designing an SMD prototying system. Most 
of you will probably turn your nose up at it and I don't really care about 
that. However if there were more than a single person remotely interested 
in it, I could conceivably afford to support more packages. On the other 
hand, I'm also working on a number of alternatives. if it's just down to me 
I'll go with whatever's easier and cheaper for me at the time.

Someone's actually beat me to the concept sorta.
http://www.rdi-wainwright.com/index.html
Only this stuff is still way too expensive and IMHO, not flexible enough. 
But compared to the stuff that Paul S keeps putting fourth as a solution, 
this stuff is dirt cheap. I think 26 bux US to mount a SOP is a bit much 
personally. But anyway...

Here's the thing. And Excuse me if this sounds like a personal attack but 
it is a personal gripe of a personal problem. Most of you guys have money 
to burn. If you can even afford to run out and have a PCB made you're 
rolling in it. If you can afford to get one made with a couple of days lead 
time then you'd have to be seriously rich. Relatively speaking I mean. I 
don't begrudge anyone this wealth so long as it's not derived from Oil 
interests, but I'm not in that league these days. So if I wanna play the 
game, I've gotta try and be a lot smarter and a lot more frugal.

Some people here have already mooted along the lines of my idea and more 
power to them. But when I started thinking about it, there's more to it 
than just providing some lands to glue an IC to. If you're working with an 
expensive CMOS chip for example, you really wanna be sure you don't blow it 
up. So you have to be able to solder it in, AFTER you've wired it up. OR! 
Be able to short out all the pins WHILE you're wiring it up. In the bad old 
days we use to do this with a bulldog clip. Not so easy with a QFP.

With this system, you probably WON'T want to use a plug-in bread board, 
though you most certainly could. It's possible to use both thru-hole and 
SMD parts together so long as you think outside the square. And it should 
be robust enough to survive as a rugged one-off device. It perhaps won't 
look pretty but it'll be serviceable.

I'm taking this tone and am skeptical because I've always 
prototyped/one-off-ed like this. Even with thru-hole. And most people I've 
explained this to have turned their noses up at it. Still thinking like a 
hobbyist I figure.

I have no intention to patent, copyright or mass produce this stuff. It's 
still vapourware for the time being because I'm still toying with design 
issues. But the rub is this, I could only JUST afford to support my own 
needs when the time comes. However if anyone was interested, it might 
become possible to extend that to support much more. And I'm willing to 
take input from anyone so long as the system still conforms to the 
flash-building principal.

I actually have a design up but I'm not happy with it entirely. I've just 
realized a potential problem and will probably go back to more-or-less my 
original concept.

If I had the connections to manufacture actual SMD sockets, I know how they 
would be designed. And even maintain an overall SMD format for that matter. 
But this is way out of my league. So I'm having to stick with this. What I 
find amusing is that apart from a few 20+ dollar sockets and adaptor type 
apparatus, no-one has actually designed sockets with a universal base. The 
real conspiracy, if there is one, is that the industry as a whole never 
thought of this 10 or 15 years ago. For an industry full of progressive 
thinking, it's shown a remarkable short-sightedness.

So if anyone's interested, contact me. One last thing though. I'm entering 
that portion of the year where things go far more slowly so don't expect 
this to happen next week or anything.

Hope this helps.
Be absolutely Icebox.

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