John. Well, I suspect the situation will get even worse with a bit of time. The first thing I noticed was that the resistor color coding did not have the color saturation that was used several years ago, and then the printing on the ICs became more elusive.
If you can think like an automated insertion machine, you will have no problem, just expect that 100+ parts that are NE612 will be loaded into your hopper by someone who only reads the label on the shipment from DigiKey, etc. In that case, there is no need to read the actual device markings. Manufacturers are responding to the needs of the board assembly houses which do not need "people readable" markings. We hams will just have to be tolerant and creative in ways to order and identify the parts that we order. 73, Don W3FPR On 9/4/2010 10:26 PM, [email protected] wrote: > > Hi Ross, > > I had a similar moment of worry when I looked at some of the ICs under an > illuminated magnifying glass and just saw a blank top with, apparently, no ID > markings. Then by accident, I slightly tipped the top face of the IC away > from > the light so the top was illuminated tangentially and voila - out popped the > lettering in a faint silver glow. In my case, it seemed the silver lettering > was very difficult to see if illuminated directly with a bright light source. > Try gently re-orienting the IC under the light and see if you can make out the > letters any better. > > 73, > > John VK7JB > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
