SOIC to DIL Adaptor Part II

Once the euphoria has died down, sanity came back through the back door and slapped me hard against the reality of it all. OK, one, so now I have the adaptor. And two, I do not have any SMT chips. And worse of all, three, the thick legs of the SOIC Adaptor cannot fit into the programmer's IC socket.

But on the bright side, I have found my 12 year old green ZIF (zero insertion force) IC socket which I have put off many times on soldering it to a circuit board as to me, it was too precious. So precious that I kept it away and have actually forgotten all about it. It was not until I decided to look for bits and pieces (I do this while thinking about solutions) did this dear socket presented itself to me. I was still thinking about how to fit both the ZIF socket and the adaptor into the programmer when I realised that the answer was in front of me!

All I needed to do was to use some stripboard to create a medium to hold both the SOIC adaptor, the ZIF socket and the thin legs. Brilliant! And so, Lady Luck smiled on me and I was able to skip to Pasar Road for the ingredients.

OK, apart from buying the real stuff, I bought some
yellow SMT LEDs. And not only that, the small box
with spring-loaded cover. The white box is the latest
design, which is a bit bigger than the current but
cheaper black box.

Although the stacking lugs are compatible, its
still too big and no, I am not going to buy more
of the new boxes. I need them to store the SMT
LEDs and not start a collection.

And so, this is what I actually got from Pasar Road. Only
the green ZIF and stripboard are from my own. The ZIF
socket is very important as the programmer that I have
does not have one and so, when I insert and pull out the
chips again and again, I would either wear out the pins
(or legs) and also accidentally bent them. Because the
legs are so fragile, once you bend them back into shape
and do another boo-boo, they will snap off forever.

Soldering the fine legs to the stripboard is a challenge.
First, you have to solder one of the legs and also align
the pins so that they do not lean. The pins must also be
of the correct height as you need space for the melted
solder to flow into. Oh, and the most important part is
the orientation of the pins as one side is thinner and
also a bit longer. This is the side for inserting into the
programmer's IC socket.

So, tilt the board a bit to let the melted solder flow
into the small space. At this time, I would also like
to remind myself that I should have bought a new
soldering tip which has a sharper end.

There. All done. Since this was my first time and also
without any other alignment tools, the let the heat of
the iron melt the black plastic and so, as they melt,
the pins went out of alignment. You can see how
uneven they are.

Make sure you also cut the stripboard's tracks because
if you do not, you are effectively shorting all 20 pins.
Also here, I have soldered the other socket which can
take in the adaptor's thick legs.

And then, I went one step further. I created another
board for the green ZIF socket and also solder in
more of those thin pins. Now, I can place the left-
most board onto the programmer. This will be the
platform for the SOIC adaptor and the ZIF adaptor.

Don't understand? Let me start again.
This is a platform board. Me stiky de
platform board to programmer socket

This is ZIF Board. Me stiky it on top platform board

If want SOIC board, me pull out ZIF board and stiky
SOIC board. Unnerstandt?

OK, so after checking for shorts, I decided to take
the test by programming a chip. Here, I am using
the ZIF board attached on top of the platform.

Success!

The Digital Meters

On the way to my regular shop, I stopped over one of their competitor's store and was amazed they do sell the same meters. What's more, they even display it in a way where you can test them! But at this moment in time, they were not switched on and so, I cannot tell if the LED displayed were Red, Green or Blue. Usually, they're Red. But the prices are very very cheap, unfortunately. So much so, I am not sure if my regular shop knows about this but buying from them, I get them at about RM7.00 more and with calibration.

Wow. You have both the voltage and current meters
working side by side here! Look at the black thing
connected across. Its a current shunt which must
be used when connected to a current meter. But
when I bought mine over the Internet, it was not
supplied. Maybe I shoudl get one from this shop.

The toughest Nokia in the World

Well, maybe its the longest lasting Nokia, then. I
hope its not falling apart and hope the rubber
bands are for decoration. Then again, when I see
my customer, she is always charging the phone....

The Mysterious System Part I

I was here to dismantle the customer's system and them replace it with our own. Then we're to take their original system and keep it in storage for a few days until their new office is ready. Nothing weird about that until my Boss pointed something out.....

This is their original system, still mounted on the wall.
What I am going to do is, to take it down, and put ours
onto the wall. And so, I have to do this in less than an
hour. Which is not a problem if I was ten years younger.
For those who know, look at the second cabinet.

Something funny, right? How can a Base cabinet
be used to replace an actual expansion cabinet?

Anyway, I did not think much about it since I have
less than an hour left to complete this. I have to work
fast as everyone would be back from their lunch hour.

While I was cleaning up, I did notice the second
cabinet's metal surface was polished. Hmm......