MOTM

The 300 requires patience & attention to detail, but
it's not to tough a build.  Also, I don't think a heat
sink will be necessary if you've got a decent iron &
good soldering technique.  Personally, I thought the
300 was pretty fun to build.


--- Adam Schabtach <adam@...> wrote:
> Appealing to the wisdom of those that have gone
> before me into regions which
> I will soon enter...
> 
> I've successfully built two MOTM modules: the 101
> noise source/s&h and the
> 420 filter. (I've also finished a 820 lag processor,
> but haven't tested it
> yet.) Both worked as soon as I powered them up, no
> problems at all.
> 
> Next on the assembly list is a pair of 300 VCOs.
> Having read through the
> instructions and looked at the rather dense PC
> board, I'm feeling faintly
> intimidated. Mostly I'm wondering how heat-sensitive
> some of these arcane
> components are. When I was a youngster putting
> together Radio Shack kits, I
> was taught to use a heat sink when soldering any
> semiconductors. In my old
> age I've become more cavalier, and also I now have a
> decent Weller soldering
> iron, so I just solder stuff quickly with a light
> hand, not bothering with
> the heat sink. (Besides, how do you put a heat sink
> on a 16-pin DIP?) So far
> I seem to have gotten away with this. Should I be
> sensible and use a heat
> sink when I'm soldering some of the more unusual
> parts in the 300s? Or is
> this being overcautious? I'd feel even more stupid
> if I broke a lead on
> something by grabbing it too forcefully with a heat
> sink.
> 
> In more general terms, are there any other words of
> sage advice about
> assembling these monsters? I've stuffed a few PC
> boards in my day, including
> some microprocessor-based data-collection equipment
> (with those nasty square
> MCU sockets with concentric sets of pins), but these
> 300s may be about the
> densest boards I've worked on.
> 
> I'm considering Larry's tuning modification, but I
> figure that I should
> probably get at least one of them working in stock
> form first.
> 
> Thanks much--
> --Adam
> 
> P.S. Paul: congrats on the new toy.
> 
> 


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