24-01-2017, 10:58 AM
It's nice to know that common sense has prevailed and you are now following the same procedures as everybody else - plus, of course, that you've found them much easier than you anticipated! Don't forget that most techniques you will find described here were developed for two good reasons: simplicity and reliability. Nobody does anything the hard way unless there is a very good reason for it!
I think you referred somewhere to the difficulties of tracing out the circuit from the component side of the board. A tip that can work with early hand assembled boards is that the better the quality of board that is used, the more translucent it is so a bright light shone through from the underside can be useful.
Unfortunately, when flow soldering became popular, a solder resist was printed over the copper side of the board so that the copper was only exposed at the joints and this resist is, of course, opaque!
As an aside to this, our Brown Brothers* rep asked me to look into their showrooms during the 1969 Trade Shows and cast my eye over a Russian TV they had on display there. I wasn't over enamoured by the performance but quickly had the back off. The cabinet had a bit of an old fashioned appearance to it but inside was a revelation - a vertical chassis in the style which hadn't been used in the UK for nearly 10 years plus the rather odd sight of Russian resistors mounted on a UHF tuner which was very obviously the product of AB Electronics in South Wales!
What really grabbed my attention, though, was the colour of the PCBs mounted in that vertical chassis - the material was uniformly black!
After that, I was escorted to a taxi - prepaid, of course! - which took me on to the West End where the major manufacturers had their shows.
I left the retail trade a month later and have no idea if any of those Russians TVs were sold on the UK market - they wouldn't have been much use until after the 3-channel 625 line service was introduced in November - but I somehow doubt it ...
* A large UK wholesaler to a variety of trades.
I think you referred somewhere to the difficulties of tracing out the circuit from the component side of the board. A tip that can work with early hand assembled boards is that the better the quality of board that is used, the more translucent it is so a bright light shone through from the underside can be useful.
Unfortunately, when flow soldering became popular, a solder resist was printed over the copper side of the board so that the copper was only exposed at the joints and this resist is, of course, opaque!
As an aside to this, our Brown Brothers* rep asked me to look into their showrooms during the 1969 Trade Shows and cast my eye over a Russian TV they had on display there. I wasn't over enamoured by the performance but quickly had the back off. The cabinet had a bit of an old fashioned appearance to it but inside was a revelation - a vertical chassis in the style which hadn't been used in the UK for nearly 10 years plus the rather odd sight of Russian resistors mounted on a UHF tuner which was very obviously the product of AB Electronics in South Wales!
What really grabbed my attention, though, was the colour of the PCBs mounted in that vertical chassis - the material was uniformly black!
After that, I was escorted to a taxi - prepaid, of course! - which took me on to the West End where the major manufacturers had their shows.
I left the retail trade a month later and have no idea if any of those Russians TVs were sold on the UK market - they wouldn't have been much use until after the 3-channel 625 line service was introduced in November - but I somehow doubt it ...
* A large UK wholesaler to a variety of trades.
