The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • SMD-to-DIP Adapter: Pin Soldering “Fixture”

    I needed a rail-to-rail op amp in a DIP package to breadboard the amplifier for those toroids and came up dry, so I sawed out a protoboard square, glued a MAX4330 in SOT23-5 atop it in classic dead-bug style, rearranged the leads into the standard DIP pinout, and moved on:

    MAX4330 dead-bug style on DIP adapter
    MAX4330 dead-bug style on DIP adapter

    The trick to getting the header pins aligned is to stick ’em in a pile of perfboards, which instantly makes them stand up straight and parallel:

    img_3430 - SMD-to-DIP adapter - PCB soldering fixture
    img_3430 – SMD-to-DIP adapter – PCB soldering fixture

    Stick the square adapter atop the headers, solder all eight pins, glue down the SOT23, and solder it with wire-wrap snippets. Ugly, but workable…