Old Man's Eyes - The Fix

I've talked before about my electronic projects. About how my eyes are getting weaker and electronic components are getting smaller. Here is another example and a fix.


The circuit board, above, is my first attempt at designing a circuit board. It's kind of fun. Lots of different options to tradeoff.

I needed precision resistors for this circuit and, it turns out that available precision resistors are surface mount devices. There are 4 sizes of surface mount resistors. I chose the biggest size, a strip of 10 resistors is shown below with a dime. The smallest size is about 1/4 this size.

Think about it this way. The size of the number printed on the resistor is between the "In God We Trust" and the date on the dime.


For another circuit, I need to solder the 8 individual terminal of this opamp. How was I ever going to see stuff this little to solder it? I needed some help.


My answer, the fix if you will, is a stereo microscope with 20x and 40x.

The rule is, when your body can't compete, cheat.