Sutro Tower, the 3-pronged behemoth that sits on a hilltop in the geographical center of San Francisco, now has a website.
The coolest part about the site, other than the listing of what radio and TV stations originate from the tower and the status of the DTV conversion, is this graphical representation of what antennas are currently operating.
The lower level auxiliary antennas are activated when the main antennas on top are being serviced, causing all sorts of problems for nearby residents.
As I wait for my AVR High Voltage Programmer Shield PCBs to come back from BatchPCB, I’m starting to wonder what prototype PCB services other people are using for their boards.
Ladyada has a PCB Cost Comparison Calculator that shows the significant differences in price between various low volume PCB vendors, but what’s missing from the chart is the answer to: What vendors are people actually using?
If the cheapest fab house is also the best, obviously the more expensive vendors wouldn’t be around, would they? Unfortunately, it’s usually not that simple, cheap usually means slow, or low quality, or both.
I know that some visitors to this site make prototype PCBs at home and others send them out to be fabricated. How do you get your prototype boards made? Vote below.
[poll id=”2″]
My friend Tony created an instructable about his Heated Stage for Thermosonic Wedge Bonding, based on my PID controlled soldering hotplate design.
Tony is building a home wirebonding station so he can work with microwave MMICs and build very high frequency amateur radio transceivers.
Nice job, Tony!
Last week I posted about the DIY PID-Controlled Soldering Hotplate I designed and built to improve my surface mount soldering capabilities.
I mentioned one issue I was having with the hotplate on flickr. Specifically, the aluminum baseplate was getting too hot for comfort (literally) when I set the hotplate to solder reflow temperatures (180-220C) for more than a few minutes. At the time I thought it was due to radiant heat from the upper aluminum block transferring to the bottom plate. I later discovered that the ceramic spacers I used to hold up the hotplate were much more thermally conductive than I thought and the screws I used to attach the baseplate to the spacers were burning hot before the rest of the baseplate. It was conducted heat, not radiant, that was the primary cause of the problem!
McMaster-Carr to the rescue!
I was able to resolve the issue by reducing the diameter of the ceramic spacers from 1/2″ to 1/4″ and using all stainless hardware to attach the spacers. Now the baseplate stays relatively cool even with the hotplate at high temperatures for long periods of time.
View the complete set on flickr.
Last week I stopped by HSC Electronics in Santa Clara to pick up a few parts for my PID Controlled Soldering Hotplate project.
Earlier this year, there was an announcement that HSC was moving because their landlord would not renew the lease on the building they have occupied for the past 15-20 years. At the last minute they were able to negotiate a lease for half of their original space, forcing them to vacate what was previously the warehouse/mail order side of the building.
So far, the evidence of these changes to their customers has been very limited. Maybe there were a few extra items at the annual sidewalk sale and some extra bins of parts on the showroom floor, but overall things looked pretty much the same – until my most recent visit.
Now there is a new HSC Clearance Annex open to the public in what was formerly the employees-only warehouse space:
I found some neat things inside: IEC line filters, variable inductors, an assortment of crystal oscillators, bags of PCB mount right angle RCA jacks. Most items are $1-2 and many come in bags of 10-100 for that price.
They also had huge boxes of assorted hardware and electrolytic capacitors – you can create your own grab bag for $1. Usually these are only available during the sidewalk sales and are a surprisingly popular attraction:
If you’re in the area, HSC might be worth a visit. HSC is located at 3500 Ryder Street, Santa Clara, California 95051.
I also recommend a side trip to Weird Stuff and Fry’s Electronics, both are within a few miles of HSC. Stop at all three and you are pretty much guaranteed to satisfy your appetite for electronics.