Octopart Pocket Electronics Reference PCB

http://crowdsupply.com/octopart/octopart-pocket-electronics-reference-pcb

by sas • 13 years ago

50 28 13 years ago

joe_bleau2• 13 years ago

Like the SM footprints, but I'm not sure I see the point of the resistor color code chart these days (If I do spec a through hole resistor, 99% of the time it'll be a 1%).

sas2• 13 years ago

Thanks joe! Yeah, sadly through hole seems to be going away on the whole, but the color codes are still used often by some people, especially while breadboarding or prototyping. I actually referred to a prototype of the card myself while designing a board a few weeks ago:) so some people will likely find one side or the other more useful. Fortunately we've designed the card to be useful in a good variety engineering contexts!

DanBC7• 13 years ago

Not sure I understand - Vishay[1] MRS25 resistors are 1% and use a colour code. (http://www.vishay.com/docs/28724/mrs16m25.pdf)

They're generally pretty nice as resistors go. Do you spec better than that?

[1] I used these when they were Philips, which shows how long it is since I was doing this stuff.

fnordfnordfnord5• 13 years ago

Most SMT resistors use a number code. Also, colorblind people.

joe_bleau2• 13 years ago

The 1% series has an extra value band, which throws off their multiplier. Example: 1k 5% is brown black red (gold), but 1k 1% is brown black black brown (brown).

We do use a few 0.1% values in some cal equipment--about $1 each!

fnordfnordfnord5• 13 years ago

Does "Set of Reference PCBs" mean four for $32.00?

edit: nevermind, I scrolled down far enough to find it.

DanBC7• 13 years ago

This is lovely.

One gentle suggestion for version 2 is conversions between pico, nano, and micro farads, and the capacitor codes used for these. Because even though it's easy to do it's still nice when you're feeling cognitively challenged to have a cheet sheet.

sas2• 13 years ago

Thanks Dan! Maybe if this one goes well I'll get to do a sequel :)

trafficlight• 13 years ago

I bought a set of these a few weeks ago.

https://www.tindie.com/products/NsN/pcb-color-sample-set/?pt...

VBprogrammer2• 13 years ago

I prefer using a multi-meter. That might be something to do with being colour-blind though.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

That's a pain-in-the-butt way to find the one resistor you need in a pile of fifty. Even though you are color-blind, that's just red and green, so you too can say to yourself "blue, blue, I need two blue stripes..."

DanBC7• 13 years ago

That's a weird mis-characterisation of what it means to be colourblind. It's one of the discriminations that's still legal in England - electronics companies are allowed to not employ people with colourblindness because of the lack of suitable 'reasonable adjustments' and the need to have colour vision for a lot of electronic stuff.

Also, any resistors not in a pcb should be in a nice drawer with a neat label; any resistor in a circuit could give misleading values when multimetered because it's in a circuit.

VBprogrammer2• 13 years ago

Unfortunately it is rarely that simple. For example I can easily spot 'pillar box' red and have no difficulty telling it apart from 'snot' green. In fact, its only in strange or low lighting that I generally have a problem telling red and greens apart. Green, Orange and Yellow; Purple, Pink and Blue; Red and Brown all can occasionally catch me out.

The effect of colour-blindness can also vary hugely from person to person. Even when they share the same type of colour-vision impairment.

Personally, I believe I tend to avoid relying on information coded in colour through habit, even when I can identify with reasonable accuracy the colours involved. Just as someone who is left handed will avoid complex tasks with their right.

mindslight• 13 years ago

Any resistor in the pile will do, because they're all the same value. Don't put different values of resistors (especially 5%ers) in the same pile :P

triplesec• 13 years ago

It's fun, but I'm not sure what it's for as I can look up these things on the internets if I forget. Is this just an executive engineer gadget?

fnordfnordfnord5• 13 years ago

It would be a good thing for my students to have in their kits. I try to get them to make something similar for SMT footprints every year (to print out on paper) with varying amounts of success. It is easy to get confused on different size designations (QFP, TQFP especially), and there is not a lot of utility in making people memorize stuff like this.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

Package types are not size designations. Pin count & pitch matter more than QFP vs. TQFP, and the dimensions of one manufacturer's TQFP can easily be different from an others, so the datasheet is key.

DanBC7• 13 years ago

You have production staff in training on minimum wage on a production line.

Those people don't get Internet access.

hpcorona• 13 years ago

Hmmm, meybe i'm getting this wrong, but... Isn't a color code too basic to be in a card in your pocket?

I mean, c'mon, i haven't used color codes since High School about 17 years ago and i still remember how to decode them. It's not that hard.

i feel that consulting a table is more time consuming that knowing how to decode it... Usually while working with prototyping you end up with lots of resistors, and i can't see someone checking each one at the time against a table to reveal it's value...

But maybe i'm getting it all wrong, someone?

fnordfnordfnord5• 13 years ago

If you're breadboarding a lot, or manually stuffing printed circuit boards, or otherwise doing manual assembly in some way, you quickly learn to read most common ranges of values on sight. Maybe some people like to keep a reminder around for when you encounter weird values, or when troubleshooting.

ISL• 13 years ago

I need to color-code a resistor a few times a year. To do so, I usually consult the table on the wall in our electronics shop or just grab an ohm-meter.

If I needed to do it daily, I'd get real good real fast.

trevyn• 13 years ago

This is way better, too bad it's over. :(

http://www.pozible.com/project/31806

Octopart Pocket Electronics Reference PCB

Related Stories