It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC



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On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:37:55 -0600, Joel wrote:

It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC


Sure. Get a finer soldering iron tip.

"Al Arduengo" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:37:55 -0600, Joel wrote:

It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable
in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC


Sure. Get a finer soldering iron tip.


Um, Dah!.. that's a given.. Of course I read all about solder paste and hot
air guns and ovens. But each of them take it for granted that you have a ckt
board to solder the chip.. But as we know, breadboarding is for hand wiring
while you build up your project. It looks to me like the days of
breadboarding is just about dead. If I had a cktboard to solder the chips
to, it would mean it was someone else's design and I'm then just a kit
builder. This hobby has a lot of facets to it. ckt development and
experimenting is what kept me going all these year. But to me, it looks like
the deck is stacked for us old guys and Ham Radio in general. We will all
soon be appliance operators.. Toasters with microphones!

Joe Loucka AG4QC



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Joel wrote:
"Al Arduengo" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:37:55 -0600, Joel wrote:


It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable
in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC



Sure. Get a finer soldering iron tip.



Um, Dah!.. that's a given.. Of course I read all about solder paste and hot
air guns and ovens. But each of them take it for granted that you have a ckt
board to solder the chip.. But as we know, breadboarding is for hand wiring
while you build up your project. It looks to me like the days of
breadboarding is just about dead. If I had a cktboard to solder the chips
to, it would mean it was someone else's design and I'm then just a kit
builder. This hobby has a lot of facets to it. ckt development and
experimenting is what kept me going all these year. But to me, it looks like
the deck is stacked for us old guys and Ham Radio in general. We will all
soon be appliance operators.. Toasters with microphones!

Joe Loucka AG4QC


Sure, BUT there ARE ckt board to adapt TSSOP to standard 8-40 pin dips for use
in breadboarding a circuit... 8-)


Bob N9LVU

Joel wrote:
It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC



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http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

I assume you are talking about the pencil type irons. If so, you can
put the point in a drill and carefully sand or file the diameter down.
Of course, without the copper coating, the point won't last as long but
this is a quick and dirty way to achieve what you desire.

Jim Chandler N5COT

"Al Arduengo" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:37:55 -0600, Joel wrote:

It seems these days every chip I want to use in anything is only valuable
in
TSSOP format. The leads are so small my smallest soldering iron covers
three pins at a time. It's hopeless.
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

Joe Loucka AG4QC


Sure. Get a finer soldering iron tip.

Got one.......
Now if I could only *see* that little bitty stuff again....I hate getting
old.

-n6ojn

Joel wrote:
Does anyone have any words of experience here?

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/sto...52050& sort=n

Noon-Air wrote:

Got one.......
Now if I could only *see* that little bitty stuff again....I hate getting
old.

You're not supposed to be able to see it even when young.

We have a spiffy binocular zoom microscope on almost every bench at
work.

I''ve pretty much given up on building hobby projects though - don't
have the right tools at home, don't have time to use the right tools at
work.