Some people apparently dislike these techniques. To each his own, but I like the Manhattan method. In fact, in the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion project, we are recommending the use of Manhattan circuit board tecniques. With Manhattan, you get a lot flexibility. At one point, for example, the High School students told us that they had forgotten to put a needed pad on the board. No problem! Just glue in a new one. Or if you put in one too many, just take one off.
You also keep all the circuitry and all the connections on one side of the board. This facilitates repair or modification. This kind of thing is not so easy when you have components on one side of the board and the connections on the other side. You spend a lot of time flipping boards over, breaking wires, trying to remember what goes where. Also, because the pads push the connections a couple of millimeters above the ground plane, I find that Manhattan technique actually reduces the chances for an accidental short to ground.
There has been some discussion of where the term "Manhattan style" comes from. Having been born on Manhattan island, I too wonder about the origin of the term. Some see it as the result of the grid pattern (like Manhatten's street grid) that results from the rectangular or square pads that are often used. Others point to the vertical parts placement that we see when looking at a board from the side -- the parts look like the skyline of Manhattan. Either explanation, I think, works.
Here is a Manhattan-style board I recently built in the Dominican Republic for my homebrew 15-10 meter SSB transceiver. I couldn't find any Gorilla glue here, so I went with Loctite Coqui. Same stuff. Latin American super glue!
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Thank you Bill
ReplyDeleteSome people have dug into the origins of the Manhattan routing or construction techniques. It appears that the term may have originated
in the digital IC industry where grids of ICs were laid down in order to effectively transfer signals and power. This was probably during the early days of computers made with TTL chips.
I learned about much this from from Wes, W7ZOI . The first person that Ham's might know who is connected to Manhattan terminology may have been Stanford professor; Dr. David Norton -- the author of the Norton noiseless feedback amplifier. Apparently he used this term in his classes -- and the son of Jim, K8IQY " Mr. 2N2222" (an ardent early proponent of Manhattan circuits) attended his classes.
I seem to recall Jim, K8IQY + Paul, NA5N + Chuck, K7QO really promoting Manhattan building in the 1990s.
Further, people like Dave, AA7EE have turned it into an art form. Dave bends his part leads at precise angles -- even the resistor tolerance bands all line up in his builds. Then he beautifully photographs them with a camera fitted with a good lens and he adjusts the depth of field to get a perfect bokeh.
Best !
Popcorn Todd
Once you are done building and testing your Manhattan board, you can secure anyb excessively floppy components to the PCB with a good adhesive for vibration. A dollop of Loctite Extreme or whatever you use will do- no vibration worries! Ready for portable operation.
ReplyDeleteJust lay it out just like the schematic. No need to route ground around the board, its everywhere.