Finishing up a couple boards in KiCad to send off to JLCPCB and the last step was to check the parts bins to make sure I had everything on-hand to populate the boards once they arrive from China. Little low on 1/8W 470Ω so I pop over to Digkey to add some to my next order.
One match? WTF? This is a bog-standard E24 series resistor value! And that one match? A mil-spec part that runs over $4 ?. Same query for surface mount? 109 hits. Guess times are a-changin’ in electronics. Thing is, not all of us want to mess with grain-of-rice sized parts for our boards.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you now saying “Get with the times old guy!” Thing is, I usually try to make my designs as beginner friendly as possible. Anyone can be taught to solder through-hole parts in about 30 seconds. In SMT, even a 2010 or 2512 part can be pretty daunting to someone holding a soldering iron for the 1st time. Hell, I personally still refuse to believe QFN parts even exist on this planet.
Ah well. For now, I re-designed my boards to accept 1/4W parts as I still have a few more of those. Guess it’s time to scour the Internet for “antiques” to restock my bins…
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