[time-nuts] Low Cost GP-IB PCI card?
John Day
johnday at wordsnimages.com
Mon Jul 10 22:41:54 UTC 2006
Actually I think you will find that if you read
the site carefully they have given up on the
toaster oven and are now using a fry-pan, albeit a non-stick electric one.
Like many of us involved in doing small prototype
work with the new, and very small SMD devices, we
often have to think laterally about how we do
things. I have also used the mylar film stencils
(also cut by http://www.pololu.com ) and they
work very well. Although I have probably never
used one more than two or three times,
prototyping is like that. For small boards I tend
to use a small lab-type hotplate I stole from the
guys in the chem lab. We used to use it for
soldering flanges onto waveguide, but it got put
in the back of the cupboard and now does a
sterling job of reflowing solder cream.
To assist the surface tension sometimes on these
boards you do tend to use a little bit of liquid
flux. On many of the tiny pads there is so little
solder that it doesn't do the job, the flux tends to help!
For small hand assembly work many of the
traditional aids just don't cut it. You cant
afford to do a stainless steel stencil for 10
small boards. Conventional screening frames are
often more trouble than they are worth. Many of
the small infrared ovens you see advertised in
the trade press and on ebay are about as useless
as .... well I am sure you get the idea.
However there are some really nice dispensing and
handling systems at bargain prices on ebay these
days. Those tiny suction hand-pieces for picking
and locating SMD parts are really really useful.
Choice of soldering irons is important too. Many
of the "hobbyist" haven't realised that if you
spend money you get something worthwhile. I had
been using Weller for years, and some Pace, but
my favourite was always a beaten up old Metcal
that I am not sure how old it was. I just
recently went out and bought a brand new Metcal
MX-500 series station with the talon tweezer
style handpiece as well. It is worth a small
fortune and then some, but with the right tips it
makes touching up of boards, and even removing
and replacing 0402 and 0201 components under the
microscope a pretty simple task.
Just don't laugh at the toaster oven, it actually
does work - I have one myself - but I tend to use
the hot-plate most often these days.
John
At 11:48 AM 7/10/2006, Ulrich Bangert wrote:
>Hi Said,
>
> > Works great with frequency counters, power meters etc. Have
> > not tried SRQ.
>
>Works great with a SINGLE instrument that talks from time to time.
>Anything that is only a bit more complex needs different measures.
>
> > One other factoid: the SMD chips seem to be soldered by hand,
> > my card had a
> > lot of solder flux on it.
>
>If you want to read the absolute truth and nothing but the truth about
>smd processing at SPARK FUN, go to:
>
>http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/ReflowToaster/reflow-hotplate.htm
>
>and be prepared to have a lot of fun. That's no joke! The boys are
>really doin it this way!
>
>Regards
>Ulrich
>
> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
> > [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] Im Auftrag von SAIDJACK at aol.com
> > Gesendet: Sonntag, 9. Juli 2006 19:46
> > An: time-nuts at febo.com
> > Betreff: Re: [time-nuts] Low Cost GP-IB PCI card?
> >
> >
> >
> > In a message dated 7/9/2006 04:56:51 Pacific Daylight Time,
> > jra at febo.com
> > writes:
> >
> > >>I found that USB-GPIB controller. Looks like BSD and Linux are
> > >>supported.
> > >
> > >
> > >> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=549
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi, I bought one on Ebay, they work quite well. They used
> > to be $99
> > > at
> > > Sparkfun, now they raised the price, and it is out of stock...
> >
> > > Have you tried using SRQ or other features than simple
> > > read/wait/write sequences with it? I found with one of the old
> > > RS-232-to-GPIB converters that anything beyond reads and
> > writes was
> > > hard to handle.
> >
> > > John
> >
> >
> > Hi John,
> > I typically only use the basic (polled) features of the GPIB,
> > sending
> > commands manually to the unit (*RST, *IDN, etc etc), or what
> > is even better I put
> > the units into "TALK" mode, that way they spit out data
> > without any need to
> > poll. Then I simply use Win Hyperterm (yuk) to capture the
> > data to a file, and
> > analyze that later.
> >
> > Works great with frequency counters, power meters etc. Have
> > not tried SRQ.
> >
> > One interesting aspect about this "Abdul" card is that it has
> > a built-in
> > GPIB connector that plugs into the instrument directly. It's
> > a curse and a
> > blessing: it hangs out of your instrument without any
> > mechanical support etc, and
> > extends your instrument length, but at the same time it saves
> > you a >$50 GPIB
> > cable. BTW: the card is now being sold on Ebay again.
> >
> > One other factoid: the SMD chips seem to be soldered by hand,
> > my card had a
> > lot of solder flux on it. It's best to clean this off with
> > Flux remover
> > (Acetone type etc) for long term reliability.
> >
> > bye,
> > Said
> > _______________________________________________
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> > time-nuts at febo.com
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> >
>
>
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