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

Sun Nov 1 20:58:51 CET 2020

hi Steve.

love the ingenuity!

seeing this type of physical problem solving is super helpful to a newcomer
like myself.

I too often get hung up only knowing the "right" way to do something but am
increasingly learning there is largely no such thing.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:05 PM <sleepy_dog at gmx.de> wrote:

>
> Ok, I did find *something*, that's 7 years old, poor camera, poor
> photographer, and not made for demo'ing ;)
> It does alas not show what I described w.r.t. some longer copper wire
> connections being held in place in a less fragile manner by doing the GND
> wires last ,with silver wire across thinner copper wires.
> What is visible here are the legs of a 4x opamp DIP package (blue dotted
> line) stuck in from the top side of the perfboard, and a bunch of 0805 SMT
> components soldered underneath.
> This forms two sallen-key low pass filters IIRC, for some control signal
> conditioning, and additionally the IC has 2 decoupling capacitors.
> That would be 8 resistors, 10 caps.
> You can see, about half the passive components are under the opamp, making
> the whole thing take less board space than a only top-populated THT
> circuit, even if you curve the one resistor leg to make a standing resistor
> use 2 adjacent holes (making the populated board higher - sometimes not
> what you want).
> (this is less flat than it could be as I stacked capacitors in some places
> to get a more close value to what was needed vs. what I had at hand)
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/qvrMrtvM/SAM-0502-sml-annot.jpg
>
>
> Am 31.10.2020 um 16:12 schrieb David Simpson:
>
> Hi Steve.
> Thanks for this excellent description of your process. lots of helpful
> tips.
> Would love to see some pictures if you have them handy.
>
>
> I don't have anything handy that would somehow showcase especially the
> "tablet aided construction" as it were ;)
> I reckon the end result doesn't really look much different than anyone
> else's boards, other than I mentioned it specifically as an aid  to make
> circuits of somewhat higher density than usual experimentel perfboard
> circuits.
> I can imagine there are persons who find this too fiddly mucking with the
> software and are practised enough to just do it all in their head and by
> sight of the circuit flawlessly, but I'm not such a one, so I thought I
> throw it in there, maybe someone finds it useful.
>
> Forgot to mention about the green plated-through perfboards that many
> chinese eber sellers have,
> while the fact they have contacts from top to bottom can help, you also
> need to take extra care of course, to not make unintended connections,
> especially with the lazy use of not-insulated wires to make long traces I
> mentioned - then accidentally crossing one of the bottom side with one on
> the top.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 7:59 AM <sleepy_dog at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>
>> 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 <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 <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 driver (EEEL1-3)
>> <https://youtu.be/_ypW45Y8VSs>
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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>
>
>
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