Freeforming a circuit that’s this highly populated gives me hives (and tests my patience), but if you have a good magnifying light, a steady hand, and take your time, you can work a lot of discrete components into a very small space. Just don’t expect to do much troubleshooting/changing when you’re done.
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That is pretty scary. Imagine if he used surface mount components!
Yeah, that’s a really good job… especially considering that the 3 transistors aren’t really visible in the above photo. I think leaded parts are easier than surface mount because they come with their own wire. Here’s one I did with 5 surface-mount and 2 leaded parts. (note: I wasn’t going for size; I was just testing out the actual parts I wanted to use before building a pc board)
Heh, I freeform with SMD. Does that make me king?
Can’t find any better pics, but here is a two-motor solar-powered robot not much bigger than a jellybean, that I freeformed. Each motor is independently controlled, so it can reverse, or turn on the spot as it seeks more sunlight. The wires out the front are connections for touch sensors that I never finished, due to short attention span kicking in, as the robot moves pretty slowly and apart from its size, isn’t all that interesting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/archvillain/2053702735/
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