free hit counter

Friday, April 15, 2005

digikey order review

So, I've been meaning to postmortem my Digikey purchases for about the
last four orders I've made.

It's hard to figure out exactly what you are going to get even when cross
comparing the 26 character description field, the printed catalog
page, and the oftentimes scant technical details from the manufactuer.

Most of the time I'm close, sometimes I get better than what I
expected, and a few times I've been dead wrong.

flexible SMA to SMA cables


J4106-ND CABLE SMA/SMA 6" RG-316DS
J4112-ND CABLE SMA/SMA 12" RG-316DS
J4124-ND CABLE SMA/SMA 24" RG-316DS
J4136-ND CABLE SMA/SMA 36" RG-316DS


Man, RF cabling is not cheap. I picked up some cables on extended loan
from our lab up in Waterloo, but they're too high grade for a software
weenie like me. I'd describe them as 'semi-rigid' though I think if
you ordered semi-rigid cables they'd be even less flexible. So I
ordered some more flexible ones. RG-178 seems to be the most
flexible, but is good only to 3 GHz. Though within my range of
general usage I couldn't resist the combo of better RF performance
(72db/100ft loss @5GHz) and price point of the RG-316DS cables.
They're slightly less flexible than I'd ideally want, but the grunting
ego part of me approves of the 10% horsepower increase.

A 6 inch cable, while usefull for my immediate application, is
just too darn short for future general use, and a 3 foot cable isn't nearly as long as you might imagine.

2 position, .25" square post sockets with crimp


A28351-ND CONN RECEPTACLE 2POS .100 TIN

I've been wondering what the precise name for the mate to standard
jumper headers. This is it.

These have a break off ticker tape edge (hows that for a technical
term?) setup for some automatic machine, and I can't tell if that
makes them cheaper or more expensive. However they look like they'll
do the trick for me. In my 5 minute quality test I crimped on two
AWG30 wires, gave them reasonable tugs, and only noticed a .4 ohm
increase in resistivity.

Test Lead Holder with three different slot sizes


461-1121-ND BRACKET WALL 13 SLOT

In the past I ordered the orange pomona model 1508 lead holder, but I liked the idea of a variation in slot size. I'm slightly disappointed, because the smallest slot in this rack still won't nicely hold my tiny patch cables and ez-hook leads. Though it will hold my stray superfat Centronix printer cable.

7 pin S-Video like cable assembly


275-1032-ND CONN MINI DIN PLUG 7POS

I bought some speakers off of ebay and was sent an incompatible
subwoofer with a 7 position MiniDin socket. We'll see if I can hook
the thing together myself, since the seller was a shiftless no good grifter.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home