Olin,

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:29:21 -0500, Olin Lathrop wrote:

>...
> Another thing we use a lot for such projects is the QuickProto-01
> (http://www.embedinc.com/products/qprot01).  We've used more of them
> internally than we've sold.  I'm not sure why they aren't selling as
> expected, but we find them very hand for our own uses.

I think it may be that a lot of people see the 28-pin format as not really a standard choice - because they came from the 16C84 they think of 18 pins 
as being the "normal" one to use.  For that reason I think a QuickProto-02 using the 88 would find more acceptance.  Personally I tend to use the 
newer 20/14/8 pin format because they are pin compatible as far as their number of pins goes, so a board using a 20-pin socket, for say the 16F690, 
can also be used by the 683, 684, 688 8- and 14-pin devices and possibly others, in the way that the PICkit2 development board does.  The problems 
with the latter, IMHO, are that it's too small to be of much use on its own, and it has that daft (but very common) "sea of holes" area where each 
hole is not connected to anything.  A QuickProto-xx which had provision for the 690 and your strip-connected holes area would be ideal for me!  
(Hey, if you don't ask, you don't get :-)

Incidentally I meant to mention a problem I had with the QP-01's that I bought when I was staying in New York:  they survived the journey from MA to 
NY (who'd have thought that chinese newspaper was anti-static? :-) but on the way home in my luggage two of them suffered damage at the tender 
mercies of Newton and the baggage handlers: some of the larger capacitors became detached from the board, in one case at both sides and in a 
couple of others just one side.  I wonder if it wouldn't be better to use through-hole for these, rather than surface-mount?  They are quite big and 
can exert a considerable force on their solder joints as a result, which for a board that is knocking around the workbench is a bit of a problem 
(obviously not for a boxed end-product, but that's not the target use of these).  Since my surface-mount soldering skills are dreadful, I haven't tried 
to reattach the completely detached capacitor, but did consider drilling holes and using a TH device.  Do you happen to know if it would be safe to do 
that through the pads, or is there anything passing below them that I can't see?

Cheers,



Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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