Including IC Sockets with Kits
One thing I've always done with the kits is to provide sockets for as many of the ICs as possible. This is for the DIP (Dual Inline Package) ICs. Surface mount IC sockets are either unobtainium or too expensive. TO-92 sockets for regulator ICs can also be hard to find / expensive. Sometimes with a low cost kit I'll make the socket optional.
Why include sockets with a kit ?
It's not for reliability, sockets might actually be less reliable than soldering an IC in place.
It's because of this kit:
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| Modified Ramsey 40 meter DC receiver with sockets and the NE602 on vacation |
I bought a kit version of the Neophyte receiver (from February 1988 QST, page 14) during the late 1980s/early 1990s because the NE602 mixer chip at the heart of the Neophyte was close to being unobtainium at the time. The hobby accessible distributors like Digi-key and Mouser didn't handle Signetics parts (the vendor of the NE602 prior to purchase by Philips). Radio Shack didn't have them either. The chip was too new to be common among the surplus vendors. So building my own Neophyte would have required buying from a "real" distributor which at the time was kind of a hassle for a ham. The easy way was to buy the Ramsey.
And the receiver worked wonderfully. Direct Conversion just has that quietness that results from no AGC or only a single conversion stage or ??
But the kit didn't come with a socket and for whatever reason I didn't put one in, I soldered the NE602 to the board (also the op-amp). I don't remember exactly why, either I overvolted the chip or I just wanted to try it in another project but couldn't - anyway I ended up removing the NE602 (IC removal was always trouble until I discovered Chipquik) and finally installed sockets. BTW, op-amps are a good candidate for sockets since the pinouts are usually the same and the socket makes it easy to trade up or down in op-amp quality.
Anyway, fast forward to 1996 when the Island Keyer kit was released I included sockets for both the microcontroller and the eeprom. They were leaf sockets but as time went along I changed to machined pin sockets from Mill-Max for all subsequent kits.
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm