[sdiy] favorite Youtube genre - "old guys repairing electronics"

Sun Nov 1 18:02:25 CET 2020

Part Two...

Next, I turn all the traces black and superimpose the Pads on them to make
the Transfer pic.  This is what gets printed onto PnP Blue transfer paper:

Finally, I copy the Transfer pic, cover it with a translucent rectangle, and
superimpose the Parts pic on top of that.  This makes up the Guide pic,
which is what I look at when stuffing the board:

This is what the board ultimately looks like.  Using this Guide pic to stuff
boards is infinitely easier for me than stuffing silkscreened boards.  All
the colour codes and cap values are there.  I can also wire the panel from
this pic if it isn't too complicated.  Stuffing and soldering a board this
size takes me about half an hour.  The longest part is actually making the
jumpers, which I do with a piece of broken protoboard while sitting in front
of the TV.

All of this is done in Excel 2003 (in Windows XP).  After the actual Layout,
making the subsequent pictures takes all of 10 or 15 minutes.  When I'm
done, I have a nice PCB layout that I can use again and again.

Actually making the boards is pretty easy.  Print, transfer (using a T-shirt
press -- the best $300 I ever spent), etch (in an HCl/H2O2 solution), drill
(using a drill press -- the best $165 I ever spent -- I wore out my first
drill press after 10 years of PCB making), tin (with Liquid Tin solution
that I make myself), and it's ready to stuff.  The entire process takes
about half an hour for a board this size.  Hence, for something of this
complexity, I can sit down from scratch after dinner and have a working
prototype up and running well before bedtime that is nice enough to sell to
other people.

  _____  

From: Synth-diy [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org] On Behalf Of
sleepy_dog at gmx.de
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2020 4:57 AM
To: synth-diy at synth-diy.org
Subject: Re: [sdiy] favorite Youtube genre - "old guys repairing
electronics"

[CAUTION: Non-UBC Email] 

Heh. If I need something quickly, cant wait for PCB, but also it does have
certain physical dimension requirements,
then I do get really "boring" and do "plan" perfboard - "what is the fun in
that" someone asked - indeed, what is the fun in that sort of tedious,
repetitive work alltogether?
Better make it as short as, and least error prone possible. It's so much
easier to reason about misbehavior of a circuit if it actually matches what
you have drawn - at least from the obvious (not parasitic) components and
their supposed connections.
While it's perhaps reasonabnly unlikely to make mistakes if you have all the
space in the world and basically solder together the circuit as-is-drawn on
some big ass perfboard, also leaving lots of room for adding more stuff to
experiment,
as things get more crowded and less intuitively placed, I found the
following to be helpful:

First of all, esp. for single-sided perfboard, I like to combine THT ICs
with SMT 0805 passives, as you can often put them comfortably between legs
and under the IC (on the bottom side of the board), that already saves a lot
of space - and wiring effort.
There are also these, often green, plated-through double-sided perfboards -
may reduce the insulated connections you have to make (which take longer due
to the need for burning away the insulation / tinning), e.g. all GND with
silver wire on the bottom, +V on the top side, or so, other nets with
insulated wire, where unconnected crossings would be at least.

Also, in the type of scenario where I would, if I could, prefer a small PCB,
but don't want to wait,
I might already have a captured schematic in my chosen EDA software anyway -
or if it's small, I'll just do it quickly.
Then convert to PCB, and usually don't route anything, or at best a few
special traces to mark special preferences.

I put that on my small-ish tablet with stylus support, that actually fits on
my crowded soldering bench.
that also runs the EDA software. Then I:

foreach non-GND-net:
    highlight net in PCB software
    connect all net points in circuit with insulated "coil wire",
point-to-point
    hide net's ratlines (or color existing traces) to make visible what's
still TODO - this shrinks more and more, and you can see the light at the
end of the tunnel

This, for me anyway, proved much less error prone than staring on a paper
printout and comparing it with the current physical as-is schematic all the
time (even when pencil checking traces ;) ).
Can basically do that half-asleep without making a mistake. (just make sure
to display the bottom side mirrored appropriately :D)

Then for the GND net I do the above, except I user silver coated copper
wire, a bit sturdier, and wherever possible, do not cut, but bend around
corners, using one long piece of wire across many connections, saving some
work steps. The silver wire will be over all those coil wires, holding them
in place a bit better, esp. longer ones, and make it less likely that you
will rip off any connection by accidentally grabbing too hard anywhere.

- Steve

Am 31.10.2020 um 11:23 schrieb ShedSynth:

Hi all.

I use perfboard, but I don't try to make it into a PCB.

I wire point-to-point with single core Kynar wire, normally used for
wire-wrapping.

I use blue, black, red and yellow on the back for -12V, GND, +5V and +12V.

I use green for all signals, always on the component side.

I lay out the big things like pots, DIL sockets and capacitors on the board
itself, and always try to leave rows of 4 holes to place resistors flat.

Then I follow the schematic, which might take several days - this isn't a
mass-production process.

I separate each functional block with a pair of pins + a jumper so I can
test on the scope as I go and also so I can bodge blocks of completed
circuits into something else.

Hope this might help somebody,

Al

If the picture comes through, it's most of a Thomas Henry MAXIMUS 3340 VCO.

The front is just as ugly.

From: Synth-diy  <mailto:synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org>
<synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> On Behalf Of Timothy Burns
Sent: 30 October 2020 15:17
Cc: SYNTH DIY  <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org> <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] favorite Youtube genre - "old guys repairing
electronics"

Good lord, I wish I watched this yesterday. Also what the heck, did he plan
before he started soldering in components? What fun is that?

Thanks for the suggestions of video and audio channels, this will be great
to have on hand as I re-solder everything from the last 36 hours. 

I'm not saying I'm going to start now, but does anyone have suggestions
software or shortcuts for planning perfboard builds? Fritzling? (Asking for
a friend.) 

Thanks All!

Tim

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 10:34 AM Ryan B8S <ryan at pimpdroid.com> wrote:

Not an old guy, but I can't believe no one mentioned Synth Chaser at Synth
Chaser dot com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/SynthChaser/videos

My favorite youtube channel by an order of magnitude.

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 7:08 PM David Simpson <davidosimpson at gmail.com>
wrote:

I recently found this video and was astonished by the skill, technique
quietude ala Bob Villa.

How to solder grid style PCB / 555 PWM DC-motor
<https://youtu.be/_ypW45Y8VSs> driver (EEEL1-3)

What are your favorite channels for informative/instructive electronics
repair? Preferable those who don't yell or are in a constant state of
outrage...

-- 

david o. simpson | cameraperson | binarymob.com | earth

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