package converter

Send them your idea

lol, for free?

Figure out who your prospective market is, build one, and show it around. :-)

Good Luck! Rich

Hehe, well, I'm trying to see if there is a market. I know I'd probably use it but thats just me. Wondering if anyone else would find it useful?

Nope, I know how to use a soldering iron, and I have considerable experience which leads me to consider most solderless schemes to be lousy lash-ups that are prone to the most annoying forms of failure.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

Thats true but I'd hate for it to turn out to actually be a decent idea and someone make a killing off it... ok, not a killing but to charge about 10 times what its worth like digikey does is immoral to me(there almost as bad as radio shack). I almost had a heart attack as I was looking through digikey's catalog. Things that I know that only cost 1$ are being sold for

10$. One example is copper wick. Now are you going to tell me there is any difference between copper wicks? I've brought them for 50c and digikey is selling them for almost 4$ for the same length and weight.

I know I'll get flamed for putting down digikey since there are so many digikey butt buddies. I'm also not saying everything is a rip off on digikey but almost everything dealing with prototyping was. I'm sure if you sold popsickle sticks on digikey for 10$ each there will be someone to buy it.

In anycase, I'd like to see this idea work out but I doubt it will. Just not enough of a market to do it myself(or I don't know about how to go and get these things manufactured and sold)... Maybe I'll talk to ironwoods and see what they think but chances are if it is any good they would just steal it.

With many seemingly good ideas, it's by far the cheapest approach.

;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Amazing. You have no idea about the idea yet you assume it won't work from the get go. My idea, I'm pretty sure and willing to bet a significant sum of money, won't fail if properly used(which means only a moron like yourself could f*ck it up). (its actually quite easy and very similar to plcc sockets... do you have problems with them failing?)

I guess you are great a desoldering smt ic's too, right? how fast can you solder on a 144 pin tfqn and then desolder it? how many times can you do this to the same circuit before the traces lift?

So, lets make this hypothesis first,

Lets assume it works perfectly... would you use it then?

I've used adapters from these guys:

and Lots more out there ...

That one sorta looks like my idea except mine is not nearly as bulky... and definitely a fraction of the cost. (I think it would work probably 99% as good as that one. As far as I can tell it looks like it uses the same general idea but mine isn't as rugged but I think one doesn't need such a beast for prototyping(it doesn't have a survice a plane crash).

You can market anything. (evidence the "Pet Rock") The trick is doing so successfully.

My knee-jerk reaction is this ain't it. Market is too small, too niche, too technical, and already has established competitors. Plus, the market you're targeting is notoriously cheap and "inventive" itself. Not good.

I strongly suspect if you put your mind to it, you could easily come up with something that has better odds. (heck, even door-to-door vitamin sales?!)

If it's your passion, and you really don't care all that much about the cash, then go for it. You never know?? But I can tell you this, and hear me when I say it:

"NEVER BUILD ANYTHING UNTIL YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS LINED UP!"

-mpm

You mean a socket??? There are sockets for all kinds of packages that aren't typically socketed. All kinds of SMT IC packages. They're typically very expensive. I've seen a few custom ones at work from an old ASIC project that look like medieval torture devices.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD

http://www.ben.com/

Yeah... look at the rich webb subthread. mine is a similar idea but. I imagine it could be done for just a few dollars instead of a hundred(those things are way over priced).

They're "overpriced" because there is so little market demand that it's not worth making tooling, so essentially each one is "hand-made", so to speak.

Cheers! Rich

A fraction of the cost would be good. However, although not at the plane crash level, prototyping and programming adapters do get beat around a bit. (er, no pun intended) I've been using a PLCC44-to-DIP40 adapter quite often recently (the device is in-system programmable but that's SLOW as compared to using a stand-alone parallel programmer) and the adapter can get quite a workout,

Well, For a fraction of the cost you could afford several. I mean, I think my idea will do a good job and you just gave me an idea(or, well, it popped into my head while reading your post) how to even make it better). I imagine it will work well with no problems 99% of the time. Of course I could be wrong but its such a simple thing and only needs to be manufactured properly to work well. (there are basically 4 components and all simple)

Essentially though its the same off those sites for the most part. Of course I have no idea how much it would actually cost since I tend to under estimate things. I looking at how expensive some things are makes me believe things are way overpriced now days.

still not work 100$. Even if its "hand made" all the components can be produced on a medium scale so the price is still to expensive. I guess the guy doing it has a degree in EE and feels he should get paid 75$ and hour just to assemble parts?

What about ZIF sockets .

But how much would your sockets cost. I work in a teaching lab and if we want 20 pin sockets I buy them, if I want 40 I buy them. How much would a socket that can take from 8 pin to 64 pin sockets cost and what of the physical size ?

[1] assuming a package is a form or word for a socket

In my mind they actually would work very similar to what is at

But the majority of the bulk in the "socket" is not needed but the idea is very similar from what I can tell.

Essentially those would be SUV's and mine would be a sedan(or even economy car). Now I have thought about every detail and mainly just had in mind stuff to use with breadboards. Large pin packages would probably be an issue. (44-64 shouldn't be a problem but 144+ would be)

In the case of a dual inline type of package I suppose it could accept any number of pins up to some max as long as the ic packages had the same widths. For quad packs it wouldn't work and you would have to have one for each type. I haven't even thought about BGA's and my idea probably wouldn't work for them.

I mainly only thought about it for soic's, sops, and qfp's.

I do not know the cost to make them though. I know I can make the pcb's myself if I needed for a probably a dollar a piece at most.(probably cheaper) The other components may or may not be expensive but I imagine it shouldn't be to much but obviously would have to be manufactured some how and its hard to do cheap on a small scale.

There are only 4 parts to it and all are pretty basic. I imagine the pins would be the most complicated to do because they need to be fabricated(I don't know anything about manufacturing but it seems like it should be to hard) and then bound to the PCB(I figure soldering it should work but there are a few mechanical issues that would need to be worked out to make it more rugged). Other than that its pretty simple.

These things won't stand up to a lot of abuse like the ones on that site. If someone steps on it then it will break and probably be worthless. Should withstand a drop pretty easy though. I think any standard handling that anyone does with IC's would cause no problems. And even if they do break every once in a while, being so much cheaper would be worth it.

In any case I'll look into it more. (I actually have two distinct ways to make the package converter. One works somewhat different and probably would be much cheaper but I haven't thought about it enough to know how good it will work)

You mind giving me some idea how much you spend on sockets you buy and what you mainly use? Knowing this might give me some motivation to work on this if its worth it.

To give you some clue about price, and this is really a rough estimate, for a ssop with 24 pins(which any similar package should be a similar price), I would say it would cost about 15-20$ assuming I can find a decent way to manufacture the individual components I need. I would say that 64 pin QFP's would not be much more expensive either.

Thanks, Jon