Monday, March 24, 2008

Building a module , sorting R

It's been a while that I posted a 'tip' , but here goes. Synth tech kits tend to come pretty well sorted, with various components in seperate bags for easier sorting, however, multiple resistors are in the same bag, which as such is not a big deal, but it takes a little time sorting them. Others keep resistors of the same value together on a piece of sticky tape, but Synthtech ships every resistor loose, mixed in the same bag. Not a big deal if you are very good at reading colour codes, but if you have like me, a solder place that has no natural daylight to speak off, and a rather warm light overhead, it can sometimes get a little tricky. Also if you consider that resistor colour codes are usually not the clearest of colours, on a beige back ground, it is even harder. Add to that the fact that I am (ever so slightly) colour blind (not quite , but I fail some of the tests when I have to go for a medical) and you can guess that soldering the resistors, is taking up most of my time when building a kit.
Having a good multimeter (DVM) is therefore a must, and I tend to go through a little session of sorting the resistors the evening before I start soldering measuring them one by one, and I stick together all resistors of the same value with some cellotape, or similar. Single resistor get a small piece of tape attached too, on which I scribble the value with a small permanent marker (a Sharpie laundry marker works great). This way, I can go through the process of soldering much faster the next day.
I hate this sorting job, but it's worth the effort in the end, and chances of mistakes are even smaller, as measuring the values before soldering confirms the value, even for those with good eyes and light conditions, and a less than perfect printed resistor...

T J

2 Comments:

Blogger synthetic said...

I measure every resistor right before I stuff it in the board. I rarely put one in the wrong place.

9:35 PM  
Blogger T J said...

That's what I used to do, now I sort (measure) first, and mark them, so that when I solder them, I can build quick and solder most components in a few hours after the kids have gone to bed :-)

8:00 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home