Trying to help a friend out, need to add a 555 signal generator/timer to a ready made stepper driver. There's room in the enclosure/box for a very small perfboard. I've seen some circuits use the resistor mounted "tower style", with one lead looped over, to use adjacent holes. Is that OK to do?

I know it's not good practice it high frequency stuff, but this is like 200Hz to 20kHz range. Just trying to to keep it small and compact. What do you guy's think?

 

I do that all the time to save space or to solve layout issues. I assumed it was common when I first saw it years ago. My brother built his remote control plane's receiver that way. He had plenty of room inside the plane but he had bought a pre-etched PCB that was apparently designed to minimize space. Or maybe it was preferred for a compact RF layout?

I should add that I'm just a DIYer, with no production experience whatsoever.

 

Vertical mount or elevated mount is done all the time, especially on small 1 to 3 way power resistors. Getting them off of the board allows better heat dissipation. Open up a receiver or guitar amp and take a look.

 

When the first transistor radios started coming out of Japan the resistors and capacitors were all standing up.

My friend long ago told me the Japanese did it standing up while the Americans did it lying down.

 

When the first transistor radios started coming out of Japan the resistors and capacitors were all standing up.

My friend long ago told me the Japanese did it standing up while the Americans did it lying down.

When I started out in the business upright resistors were referred to as "Japanese TV style."

While this term was disparaging term I see only three issues:

A) the bottom lead can get really short so you are essentially soldering to the body of the device, so try to keep a bit of space down there.

2) The top long lead had the potential (no pun intended) to short to the next device if you don't pay attention. If you do pay attention and it may short anyway you need to sleeve it.

III) Leads? Resistors still have leads? Mine are little black rectangles with metal on the short ends.

 

When I started out in the business upright resistors were referred to as "Japanese TV style."

(Yadda, yadda, yadda...)

III) Leads? Resistors still have leads? Mine are little black rectangles with metal on the short ends.

Ernie,

Can you post a photo of your little black rectangles mounted "Japanese style".

 

Thank you to all that answered! I've seen it done this way on many things and have done it myself for my own amateur stuff. But kind of remember seeing it said somewhere that it wasn't a good idea.

Since this was for some one else I wanted it to be "right". Japan style it is!

 

The assemblers at one of my old jobs called it a "pump handle" configuration.

 

The assemblers at one of my old jobs called it a "pump handle" configuration.

I read one time (and it makes sense) to place it so the top wire is connected to common. That way a short is not an issue. Otherwise it should have a sleeve if shorting is possible.

 

Many years ago my company built a preamp for an IR imaging system that used two circuit boards in a sandwich style with the axial lead components going between the two boards. It made a very compact module with 4 preamps per 1.5 inch square pair of boards. The thickness of the module was about equal to the thickness of two boards plus the length of a 1/4W resistor. Laying out the two boards must have been an interesting design problem. There were 88 of those modules per system.

 

Ernie,

Can you post a photo of your little black rectangles mounted "Japanese style".

I've heard of it, think it may be an ISO or such recommended rework practice, but I don't have any pictures.

 

I can see how mounting the little black rectangles on their sides would expose more surface area for heat dissipation, rather than just being flat on the board. Sort of like mounting axial resistors on their ends.