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October 6th 04, 06:32 PM

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

There are prototype board shops that will make boards for you. You feed 'em
the
artwork and they make the boards in an almost totally-automated process.
Prices
are low enough that if you make a few copies it gets really attractive -
particularly since the price includes things like coating and component
locations. And you don't have to deal with the chemicals or board stock.

They advertise all over the electronics trade publications and on the
Web. "It just ain't the same as real hombrewing." . .

Yeah, I know, but depending on yer timeframe, space, tools and tolerance for
smells and such it may be cheaper/easier/quicker to farm it out.

Time and tools I have, the space is a question though. I was raised in
a machine shop, worked in refineries, chemical plants, textile mills
and had a darkroom. Odors are no biggie.

Agreed and trying to use SMT devices to homebrew compact complex
equipment really drives a stake in it.

There are those who can do SMT, of course. But the stuff requires yet another
level of tooling and skills.

Kills it for me.

In the ancient times, you mounted the parts on a wooden base, then wired it
up. Build a rig in an evening.

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

I've done it...

Point is, it was quick, inexpensive, easy and forgiving of errors

And when it's done it looks just like what it is, a POS.

Then came metal chassis and panels. Do the metal layout, the metal work,
mount
the parts, wire it up. Build a rig in a bunch of evenings.

SOP.

Yup but a lot more work than a piece o' wood

I'm willing.

Given typical basement resources, I'll have my mechanical dial built and
calibrated before the other guy has his PC boards done.

Probably but it depends on whether yer talking Collins quality or
rubber-band quality mechanicals.

I figured that one out about 35 years ago:

WW2 surplus had lots of good parts. Among the very best are the integral
dial/reduction drives/capacitors found in ARC-5 rx and tx units, and the
LM/BC-221 freqmeters. All you need are adapters for the shaft and a new dial.

Swords into plowshares. I never bothered with Millen and National drives for
serious stuff.

Then you missed the boat. As you know I'm more than just a tad
familiar with those old surplus drives. They were designed *seven
decades* ago for use in high altitude high vibration combat
environments. Usually on fixed freqs. None of which has anything to do
with ham gear particularly today's ham gear. They're miserably slow
tuning *kluges* by any realistic measure. I could build a complete DC
rcvr in the space one of those clunkers sucks up and it would have a
nice smooth tuning mechanism. Which is why you got the last of those I
had. I am not going to be the Last Dinosaur, that's your yob.

The Type 7 uses a cap from a hangar-queen BC-221. 100:1 nobacklash
drive,
thermally compensated, extremely rugged cast frame, etc. Better than almost
anything in typical ham gear. Cost maybe $5 for the whole chassis, which has
lots other good parts.

To get more dial spread, I made a dial drum from a piece of 6" plexiglass
tubing. Recycled, of course. Dial light/reflector assembly is inside the drum
and shines through the plexiglass. You view the lighted dial through a window
in the front panel.

To calibrate, I wound a piece of paper on the drum and marked it with the aid
of my working BC-221. Then the raw paper was redrawn via CADD, the result
inkjet printed on a scrap of Mylar drawing stock, and the whole thing put on
the dial drum. Works and I can read it in any light, with or without glasses.

Steam locomotives and gas lamps still work too. I'm waiting for you to
announce that you're driving back and forth to the job in a 1937 Model
72 Terraplane.

Sure he did. He had a cb set, for one.

Seems like he also had some green dot / yellow dot sorts of reddios in
addition to the CB rig. 100% Rat Shack and Moxon plug & play. Whatta
"homebrewer" . . .

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

Nope.

Yeah, I guess we had to have somebody "over there" reading the
repeater meters and locked in mortal combat with all those kamikaze
geishas in the joints in Tokyo. While I worked my way thru E school
back here on the home front. On my own dime.

Been there, done that - halfway, anyhow. One big reason I went to Penn was the
nice Benjamin Franklin scholarship they gave me. Covered more than half of the
cost per year. Also NDSL loans and a near-full-time job year 'round.

I took a different path and not only paid the full tab as I went along
via the job, I also had a nice wad in the bank and two years worth of
engineering experience at the end of my trek. No summers off though.

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39 hours/week.

That's ugly.

No car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

PRR MU-54s: 14 minutes flat from Aldan to 30th St.

I run a LISP
rountine in Autocad to come up with the cross-sectional properties

Nice! But I prefer Microstation...

Lemmee know when you get yer home installation of Microstation to spit
out the plane and torsional moments of inertia of a tower section.

I can get that result in about 120 seconds.....

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

You SLIME!

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

.. . . you got that right . . !

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

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