This past week I completed the transition into my new position where I work. This puts me on regular daytime 8 hour days Monday thru Friday. I said goodbye to the 3:30am alarm and the 12 hour days. They are just a little too much for me at my age (lol). With the resulting extra sleep and reduced stress I was able to start to act like a regular human being again. Now to start back with my hobby.
I had previously announced my plan to build a 2N2-40. I was able to procure a lot of the parts and other needs at Dayton this spring. I had seen a blurb on one of the maker sites about using a diamond tip tile hole saw to make “islands” for Manhattan style construction. I found the saw at my local big box hardware. Below is card and a view of the saw.
Diamond Hole Saw
Hole saw for Islands. Business end is up.
I setup the drill press and tried it out. Wow, did it do a nice job. The islands are about the same size as the ones that you glue on. I guess you could use this saw to make them. My plan is to just drop the bit far enough to remove the copper to create the island. The drop figure I used is 0.02 in as I noted on the card for future reference. Below is a picture of the finished product.
The end result of the hole saw and some mounted components.
The two circles in the back are what the hole saw cut. The resistor is mounted across two islands with the cap as a bypass to the ground plane.
The disadvantage (or not) I see with this technique is that once the Island is cut there is no moving it. For projects with a established layout this is not a problem. Experimentation might be a little difficult but still could be done. I had a little issue with the rosin flux running into the groove. A little alcohol cleaned it up well. A suggestion from the QRP-L list was using paint or nail polish to provide a better look to the finished product. I was thinking about using a color for Tx and another color for Rx circuits.
So now I guess I need to get going on the rig. Ok now, what did I do with those parts?
