3-D Printed Discs For Transistor Sockets?

[erelguitars]

Why print sockets? I bought one of those sockets and many single pins. Put 3 pins over the socket-pins and solder them. Remove the socket so you have 3 pins on your PCB. That works very well for me for almost no costs at all. And I prefer the look of 3 pins.

 

[Erik S]

I could send you a couple.

 

[drew.spriggs]

I wonder if the layout artists here could do up a sheet of THICK PCB-styley sockets at JLCPCB, but...

The question is: DOES JLCPCB HAVE THE PINS TO DO IT?

If you know any hobbyist with a CNC, they are trivial to make - you just need to find somebody who is willing to do a small enough batch. Use PTFE for the most bougie ones available, or a 2.5mm A4 sheet of micarta will give you ~500 (I buy A4 sheets for $10). Despite what people think, you can hold down PTFE with the tape/CA glue trick so don't even need fancy workholding.

Doing it with a thick PCB would cost you dollars each.

Standard DIP8 pins will press fit in.

Just made these that only require two operations - 1.3mm drill and 1mm profile cut >>> files here

 

[Fama]

genuinely, my intention is to encourage folks to try breadboarding things for better results, but usually this just results in hurt feelings.

I forgot to reply to this earlier, but I absolutely agree that if you want the best results, you should probably breadboard it first and figure out which parts you want to use, and then build it straight away with those.

Sockets do sometimes help (or would have helped) avoid issues with transistors being the wrong way around though, but if you're careful you can avoid those mistakes in the first place. To be honest, a similar argument goes for op-amps too - if you just solder them carefully the first time around, you don't need to socket them either. Although for whatever reason most people seem to be fine with socketing op-amps.

But "just don't make mistakes" is not very good advice in general, and "do it very carefully so you don't make mistakes" is barely better. And frankly, the number of time sockets have saved my ass or helped me fix issues massively outnumbers the number of times I've had any issues with sockets. I firmly believe that a lot of people who say "just desolder them" use leaded solder (which I think is much easier to desolder without any damage than non-leaded), high quality tools and have a lot of experience soldering and desoldering. "Just get better at it" is in the same category as "don't make mistakes" as far as advice goes, IMO - sure, it's true, but it's not very helpful.

Then again, I don't gig, so that might be part of it - maybe they end up wiggling free after a while through vibrations? You can of course solder them in after you've determined the parts work as they should, I guess, which should avoid that issue.

Finally, I do definitely plan on learning breadboarding (and I'm sure it's easier than how it feels after I've done it a few times), but building pedals is often something I do to get that dopamine hit when I'm tired and don't have the capacity to work on music or learn new skills (so, most of the winter it seems). Spending time and effort learning breadboarding instead is just not something that I can do - I just want to listen to some music and populate some boards.

I guess this is just a very long-winded way of saying that I understand perfectly where you're coming from, and wanted to show where I'm coming from.