RE: [neonixie-l] Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

[johnk]

When "we" were manufacturing in the '90s the safe storage time for SMD was 
around 3 to 6 mths. Surfaces weren't 'fresh' after that. Some was wave soldered 
some reflow.
If that is a slow moving component then maybe they coated it with a solder-thru 
protective layer? Doesn't seem like they used a low activity flux coating from 
that description.
 We had reasonable success with the solder-through enamelled copper wire 
coatings, but generally still had someone on the production line dip the ends 
of the coil/transformer leads in a solder pot. One of the main reasons iirc was 
that we had difficulty transitioning the inspectors from through-hole soldering 
to SMT. Historical note: I believe that NASA demonstrated that certain 
bad-looking joints were actually equal/superior to the ones that inspectors 
were trained for. It was TOO hard to characterise the iffy looking joints so 
that they could be reliably distinguished from bad joints. When SMT came along 
various inspectors nearly had breakdowns  :-) 

[I have no idea of current practices; and gee, THAT was 25 years ago! Feels 
like yesterday.]
Hope you find out about that coating as I am rather interested too.

John K

-Original Message-
From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On 
Behalf Of Paul Andrews
Sent: Tuesday, 20 August 2019 13:24
To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

No. Still don’t know what it is.

> On Aug 19, 2019, at 11:01 PM, Bill Notfaded  wrote:
> 
> Did you figure it out Paul?  Now you have me wondering too...
> 
> Bill
> 
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Re: [neonixie-l] Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

[Paul Andrews]

Maybe I should just ask digikey, which is my supplier in this case.

> On Aug 20, 2019, at 2:13 AM, johnk  wrote:
> 
> When "we" were manufacturing in the '90s the safe storage time for SMD was 
> around 3 to 6 mths. Surfaces weren't 'fresh' after that. Some was wave 
> soldered some reflow.
> If that is a slow moving component then maybe they coated it with a 
> solder-thru protective layer? Doesn't seem like they used a low activity flux 
> coating from that description.
> We had reasonable success with the solder-through enamelled copper wire 
> coatings, but generally still had someone on the production line dip the ends 
> of the coil/transformer leads in a solder pot. One of the main reasons iirc 
> was that we had difficulty transitioning the inspectors from through-hole 
> soldering to SMT. Historical note: I believe that NASA demonstrated that 
> certain bad-looking joints were actually equal/superior to the ones that 
> inspectors were trained for. It was TOO hard to characterise the iffy looking 
> joints so that they could be reliably distinguished from bad joints. When SMT 
> came along various inspectors nearly had breakdowns  :-) 
> 
> [I have no idea of current practices; and gee, THAT was 25 years ago! Feels 
> like yesterday.]
> Hope you find out about that coating as I am rather interested too.
> 
> John K
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On 
> Behalf Of Paul Andrews
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 August 2019 13:24
> To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts
> 
> No. Still don’t know what it is.
> 
>> On Aug 19, 2019, at 11:01 PM, Bill Notfaded  wrote:
>> 
>> Did you figure it out Paul?  Now you have me wondering too...
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
>> -- 
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> 
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[neonixie-l] Re: High current driver for 16 segment LED display

[Mitch]

Thanks, John. I was at a dead end with this circuit. I tried several values 
of resistors in series with the gate. That didn't work, but disconnecting 
the 2N7000 and grounding the gate on the NDP6020, did turn on the LED. 

I will try the TSC426. The only reason for the 74HC04 was to invert the 
signal because the 2N7000 also inverted it, so a non-inverting chip will 
simplify the circuit. The only issue is the cost. Eight are required to 
drive 16 segments and they are over $7 on digikey, but 27 cents on 
aliexpress. Does a series resistor go between the HK16K33 column driver and 
the gate of the TSC426, and is a resistor required between it's gate and 
source? Also, I think the NDP6020 is overkill to drive at most four LEDs on 
the largest segments, so I'll probably switch to a NTR1P02T1G or something 
similar.

Here is the first word clock based on the HT16K33 
http://angryelectrons.co/wordclock-1.

If I can find a similar circuit using the HK16K33 that will drive IN-17 
tubes, I'll  do a version for them, too.


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[neonixie-l] Re: High current driver for 16 segment LED display

[Bill Notfaded]

Interesting project Mitch.  I too love alphanumeric displays!

Bill

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[neonixie-l] Re: Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

[Terry S]

My guess would be ENIG like on a PCB. Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold. 
The data sheet or the vendor's website would tell you the exact finish.

Terry

On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 9:56:24 PM UTC-5, Paul Andrews wrote:
>
>
> What is the gold/amber colored coating on the contacts of this chip? The 
> contacts aren't gold, and when it is reflowed it just bubbles up as gunk.
>
>
> 
>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

[Paul Andrews]

That was what I assumed until I reflowed it. I wish I had photos of what it was 
like before I used my hot air rework station to take it off and reapply it. The 
gunk cleaned off before I resoldered it.

> On Aug 20, 2019, at 10:14 PM, Terry S  wrote:
> 
> My guess would be ENIG like on a PCB. Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold. The 
> data sheet or the vendor's website would tell you the exact finish.
> 
> Terry
> 
>> On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 9:56:24 PM UTC-5, Paul Andrews wrote:
>> 
>> What is the gold/amber colored coating on the contacts of this chip? The 
>> contacts aren't gold, and when it is reflowed it just bubbles up as gunk.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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[neonixie-l] Re: Q: Gold colored coating on surface mount contacts

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

Also, it would be possible that this is some kind of additional soldering 
component, to make the part suitable to use as a module, to increase the 
future solder point.

For example, if you want to use a chip on a small pcb, which is later 
machine-soldered on a bigger pcb, it can be a problem, if your part on the 
"Module" pcb gets molten too. For normal parts, is uncommon to be used as a 
module (solder), but for these chips, and other one, its quite common to 
manufacture modules.For example, the U-Blox Nina Module, is based on a ESP32

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Gratuitous nixie porn....

[Nicholas Stock]

You don't have to use both, just an option with the board. You can
configure them to do different things for some variety or just use one in
your design.

Alas, the large tubes are an increasingly rare commodity...unless Dalibor
shakes things up again!

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 8:16 AM Bill Notfaded  wrote:

> I like the dekatron setup... I wonder why it's two tubes?  I'm curious how
> this works with two tubes.  I picked up a sealed box of 25 OG-4 this past
> year and have been looking for way to build a 6 digit dekatron clock with
> them or perhaps A-101 tubes as I also have a bunch of them.  When you guys
> are ready with your new clock I'm ready.  I've got a decent stash of the
> British tubes yours and Grahame's clock will require now.  I just sent
> email to Pete about making me some B-8091 tube boards as well.  Looks good
> and would be nice use of my tubes that took me forever to also collect... I
> know you know how hard it is to put together a set of these Nick.  I still
> don't have the biggest ones like you have yet though... the B-8091's are
> the best I could do so far.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Bill
>
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> 
> .
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Gratuitous nixie porn....

[Bill Notfaded]

I like the dekatron setup... I wonder why it's two tubes?  I'm curious how 
this works with two tubes.  I picked up a sealed box of 25 OG-4 this past 
year and have been looking for way to build a 6 digit dekatron clock with 
them or perhaps A-101 tubes as I also have a bunch of them.  When you guys 
are ready with your new clock I'm ready.  I've got a decent stash of the 
British tubes yours and Grahame's clock will require now.  I just sent 
email to Pete about making me some B-8091 tube boards as well.  Looks good 
and would be nice use of my tubes that took me forever to also collect... I 
know you know how hard it is to put together a set of these Nick.  I still 
don't have the biggest ones like you have yet though... the B-8091's are 
the best I could do so far.

Best Regards,

Bill

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