Homebrew PCBs

Stefan Trethan wrote:
> One of the (i think) better ideas then was to put the components in a  
> pickup area.
> Few of us will have reels for most parts, but most will have short strips.
> If you put little pins on the pickup area where the holes in the tapes  
> line up, that could work. You need to peel off the covering tape  
> beforehand.

I'd imagine tape reels are a non-issue for the type
of prototyping under discussion here.  As you suggest
a far more common scenario is dealing with cut tape
segments.  But even here I don't see the advantage
to gradually pull back the tape as components are
consumed nor much of an overall advantage to peeling
off the tape from a strip and feeding from the exposed
carrier.  It is likely for some unused components to
remain and you'll need to find another home for them
anyway.

I've just abandoned the tape carriers all together and
strip components wholesale from them over a funnel which
feeds into a small ziplock bag.  I can dump whatever I
need into a tray for placement and the excess goes back
to the bag via funnel.  The bag also offers a much more
hospitable means to identify component values compared
with the carrier tape.

> For other components like ICs that you don't have in strips one might mill  
> out small indentations in a plate.
> of course this would also work for smaller parts.

These days prototype IC count tends to be far lower
than days gone by.  Such that I don't have much of
an issue just sitting the packages on a foam slab
prior to placing.  Alternatively if you need to
prebake the packages before reflow soldering to avoid
popcorn damage a metal tray works as well.

-- 
uhmgawa@...        www.gnu.org