Cute Wiring

Yesterday, I wrote about my foibles in ignoring my own advice. As SiliconFarmer pointed out over on Twitter, it's not just something you need to do when you're re-purposing a close land pattern. Sometimes even the "correct" pattern can have the wrong drill size or a few mixed up pins.

The bottom line is that if you want to reduce the chance of scrapping some expensive PCBs, or having spots that look like what I did (on the right here), check your land patterns.

I couldn't find my wire-wrap wire late last night, so instead, I used the leads from old thru-hole resistors. It's kind of a mess, but I do like the hatch-markish look that I gave it.

Not to shift any blame off of myself, but I do find it quite annoying when a part falls into such a common standard configuration, as in three-terminal regulator, but the manufacturer picks a different pin-out.

[Note that this is rework I did myself at home. The folks here at Screaming Circuits do  much, much higher quality work.]

Duane Benson
The problem with unwritten rules is that they're unwritten

Comments

[Marc]

I imagine that the message is clear when you ask for an RMA because you found a competing part with the "correct" pinout.

[Tony Rolando]

You can let IC manufacturers know how you feel by not using these parts. I realize that sometimes there are physical limitations that dictate pin outs, but I am not interested in using any op-amp or three terminal regulator that does not follow the commonly used pin outs.