[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
> > _______________________________________________
> > time-nuts mailing list
> > time-nuts at febo.com
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> >
>
>
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