LE LED Driver Replacement

[kj77rn]

Mouser list the LED driver on the parts list as a minimum order of 1460.  Is there a replacement part?  Or should I look elsewhere?

[combustionmark]

It appears that they are just out of stock and have not reordered them yet. Hopefully they will order them soon. Newark also is out. I did see that there are some on ebay and aliexpress, not the most cost effective way to get some. Maybe someone else has a link to some.

[Gcummingsjr]

I checked with mouser today and they said the LED driver has been discontinued since February 2013 does anyone know of a replacement driver. I found a surface mount and a thru hole adapter but it is quite pricey.

Gary

[RJ]

Funny?

Didn't we just do a coop of them and got the chips for them?

This is going to suck if they are not avaliable any longer. Not sure what we will have to do if that is the case. I will research it.

RJ

[RJ]

I have pulled the pcbs out of the store until I find an answer. If not they will not be put back in as it would be unfair to sell pcbs to people who could not get parts. I will just eat the pcbs and heatsinks for the store if that becomes the case.

RJ

[Steve Gase]

I have an extra LED that I purchased last year when I thought I had destroyed the original I had from my kit.
RJ, if you released one PCB I could sell my RGBW LED to a worthy person.

[n1ist]

Looks like only the DIP version is EOL.  I guess you can use the SO28 version with an adapter until you find another option.

[combustionmark]

That is just the way electronic hobbies go. I enjoy restoring arcade games, Most of the parts are obsolete and impossible to find. When you finally find a suitable replacement part, its surface mount.

 This might just be the manufacturer changing the part number, happens quite often. Hopefully Mouser has jumped the gun and they are still in production.

Fingers Crossed

[animal]

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 Can somebody check this company out. I'm at work.  I can check also when I get home.

  animal

[combustionmark]

They do consignments for others with excess inventory. They have a minimum order, that is unknown until they contact seller for availability and settle on a price. Sent email request for a quote, who knows, they don't appear to be set up for small orders. This may have to be handled by a coop manager.

[tbone321]

If we really want this hobby to continue, it looks like it's really getting to be a time to begin learning how to work with SMDs.  Perhaps at the next Academy, it might be a good idea to have an extended hands on class on working with theses components.

[combustionmark]

If we really want this hobby to continue, it looks like it's really getting to be a time to begin learning how to work with SMDs.  Perhaps at the next Academy, it might be a good idea to have an extended hands on class on working with theses components.

What it that old quote?

Necessity is the mother of invention

Or should it be, Necessity is the mother of learning?

I taught myself to solder, Army taught me how to do it good, Necessity taught me to surface mount solder.

So many of the good parts are only available in surface mount. I had a project I wanted to try, parts I wanted surface mount only. I hunted for a solution, found adapter boards. OK I can get the parts I want installed on one of these.

 How much do you think they wanted, Lets just say that other saying is true "If you have to ask, You probably can't afford it."

I really wanted to do this project, There must be a way.

So I decided to buy the parts, order the adapters, and give it a go. The parts were so small I had to use a file on my soldering iron, to get the point small enough to solder the biggest of them small parts. Now that wasn't so bad.

Grabbed the next part carefully put it into place, moved the soldering iron into place, applied solder, removed iron, took a good close look at my work. What? where did it go? Must have left the soldering iron on too long, and burned it up. Well I have a couple more I can try. I didn't expect to get it the first time.

Take 2. Get that little thing in place, apply soldering iron, What, what is that, stuck there, on the tip of my soldering iron, That's the part that vanished. Oh and this this this is the first part I put on. Half the day gone and nothing to show for it.

I gave up. Don't even know what the project was any more. I thought I would never try that again. A few years later I found a website, They had short movies on it. The first one was of someone soldering, and it was surface mount. I must have watched that video 100 times, I decided to give it another try.

I'm not the best at it, I can get the parts soldered down, and they even work.

The only thing I can say is, You have to give it a try. You really have to. If you enjoy this hobby at all, there is no describing how much joy there is when you get that little led flasher to work.

[tbone321]

Trying to surface mount with a soldering iron is difficult, even with a good iron.  Fortunantly there are easier ways to do it and the stations designed for this work are not all that cost prohibitive.  At RJ showed with the Aether 1, even a hot plate can be used if needed.  I would be great if somewhere down the line someone either find or design a low cost kit that uses suface mount cmponents to give people something to learn on and practice with. 

[MazdaFan]

Fortunantly there are easier ways to do it and the stations designed for this work are not all that cost prohibitive. 

Indeed.  I picked up an 852D off of Ebay for $80.  It has the iron as well as a hot air (SMD) gun.
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At RJ showed with the Aether 1, even a hot plate can be used if needed. 

Yep yep... you can use a hot plate or a cheap toaster oven.  Tutorials here:

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Then all you need is soldering paste and a stencil (or a toothpick and a lot of patience).  Then apply your part, apply heat and watch that baby slide into position! (perhaps with a nudge of a pencil)

Jamie

[peteandvanessa]

That's the same one I have. I used it to reflow the pins on the Flash card connector used for the Conductor. I just bought a small flux pen, put a small amount of flux across all the Flashcard connector pins and chose the smallest hot gun nozzle, brought all the pins up to temp until they were re-flowed and the Conductor started working again.
There were one or two pins that would not reflow (they popped up off the PCB when heated), so I chose the smallest soldering iron tip and pushed them down again and reflowed them. You need a magnifying glass and a steady hand, but it wasn't too hard. Heck the surface mount version of the LED driver would be a breeze by comparison.