A couple of days ago, I wrote about a TO-263 footprint that caused the part to slide up almost off of the legs. Here are two examples of a footprints (or should it be "feetprint"?) that will work just fine.... Read more
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half a million new businesses open every year in this country. Granted some of them are pizza parlors and carpet cleaners, but a lot of them are start-ups put together by an... Read more
There really isn't much you can say about this other than what I said in the post title. (although, I'll probably end up saying a lot more than just "ouch") I don't know what kind of parts were in here... Read more
Another Parts Library issue Surface tension can be quite handy. For one thing, without surface tension, water bugs wouldn't be able to skip along the surface of a pond. They'd sink like a rock straight to the bottom and frogs... Read more
Darn, darn, darn. More vias in those pads. It kinda makes the LEDs look prettier without any solder on those pads, but it won't make them light up any more reliable - and light emitting diode that doesn't emit any... Read more
We ran across an interesting part the other day. Modular sub-components are getting more and more common. You see bluetooth radios in module form, ZigBee radios, GPSs, Power Supplies and other common building blocks showing up like this more and... Read more
OSP (Organic Surface preservative, not Oregon State Patrol) isn't all that commonly seen in our shop. It has been a pretty common pcb finish for high-volume, low-cost products for quite a while and I've heard that it's starting to show... Read more
I can get pretty tired of the rain and drizzle out here in Oregon. Sometimes it seems like we spend half the year living through 40 degrees and raining. Yuck. Nothing bad, as you can see in this photo of... Read more
I've written before about immersion silver finished boards and some of the challenges associated with that technology. It's a popular choice for RoHS these days because it's inexpensive compared to some of the others, has a nice planar surface and,... Read more
Tutorial on placing a Turn-Key assembly order with Screaming Circuits: With a kitted quote, you send us the pcbs and parts and we build up the assembly for you. With a turn-key order, you just send us your files and... Read more
