Help with Chinese J201 FETs

[Chevy]

Someone recommended getting a bunch of Chinese TO-92 J201's on Ebay, since they are cheap, plentiful, and now harder to come by otherwise. (Trying to stay away from the surface mount option.)
I got them, but am confused by the pinout. The data sheets I've seen all have the gate at one end of the package. When I measure these J201's with an ohmmeter, it seems the gate is the middle lead; I get about 5.6M ohms between the middle lead and each end lead in one polarity, and then infinite ohms between those same leads in the other polarity. The 2 outside leads are infinite ohms in both polarities.

Have I got this right... that the middle lead must be the gate? If so, why would they be made that way, unconventionally ?
Also, are the Source and Drain interchangeable?

 

[Nostradoomus]

who recommended that? They were wrong. Surface mount jfets are the best thing going these days as far as being in spec goes.

 

[fontoponto]

If you got them cheap they are probably fakes. I bought a bag a few years ago and they were fake transistors. Cant bias them correctly.
Source and drain should be interchangeable.

Measure them
Thread 'Half my J201s are bad?'
https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/half-my-j201s-are-bad.18481/

 

[Chevy]

OK, 'nuff said, and thanks guys.

I will be using the surface mount jfets in the future... it's just not worth my time and aggravation/hassle to mess with suspect parts. Done with that.

 

[swelchy]

OK, 'nuff said, and thanks guys.

I will be using the surface mount jfets in the future... it's just not worth my time and aggravation/hassle to mess with suspect parts. Done with that.

yeah man.... it's totally worth buying the j201's pre mounted on adaptor boards.... literally add three legs and keep rocking... I keep plenty of those on hand for builds as well as the straight up surface mount because Robert has pads to direct solder on most pcbs that require them.. I'm way more comfortable doing smd now than I was a couple years ago.

 

[Stickman393]

I've got a little baggie of Chinese j201s.

It's not so much that mine are fakes, but it seems like they're just a different jfet labeled as a J201.

That's the thing, though: folks select j201's for their datasheet characteristics. Having a bunch of of spec can be...an...annoying.

My recommendation? Grab some solder paste, a cheap vacuum pick up tool and tweezers, a magnifying headset, a very fine tipped soldering iron, and have at it.

Though it requires a steady hand. If that's not in the cards, definitely pick up the pre-soldered variants.

It seems daunting at first, but it's not so bad. I'll add that leaded solder is definitely the way to go here too: lead-free stuff absolutely works but the added heat required to melt the solder makes it easier for inexperienced hands to damage the components.