Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

I had a ∗long∗ debugging session with a customer building a MOTM-300 VCO
from parts. Was dead in the water (no outputs). He had previously replaced
∗all∗ op amps, the MAT-02EH and the LM319. To no avail.

Them we started on the transistors. He noticed that he had 2 'batches' of
2N3904s:: 2N3904 - CJ22 and others marked 2N3904 - J04.

It turns out these have ∗different pinouts∗. It's still an "2N3904" but not
the proper EBC pinout! Which is...errr...NOT per JEDEC standard (the 2N
means the part is supposed to be in a registered database) but I guess no
one gives a rat's ass about JEDEC, JAN-TX and all those 'old fart'
transistor specs.

So, ∗be very careful∗ buying 2N3904s, you want EBC pinouts. CHECK THE DATA
SHEETS!

Paul S.