Below the ripple voltage chart explanation is an email thread that I thought would be interesting to share. Note, permission was provided to reprint it here. The subject of the email is: Fat Caps & Ripple Current…

The following ripple voltage chart is provided for reference material.

Capacitor Discharge Results in Ripple Current

Understanding the Ripple Voltage Drawing Above

The faster the capacitor discharges, the more ripple will be present. If the capacitor in the circuit is underrated or completely bad, it will not properly hold a charge, and thus the electronics circuit will have maximum ripple present. When a capacitance filtering circuit is faulty, picture the valleys on the voltage being very deep relative to the peaks, and the ripple current will shoot up proportionally in the circuit, with the result of a major increase in heat being generated in all the circuits supplied by the power supply voltage that should be a regulated level DC, which would now effectively be an AC ripple voltage. This will quickly result in thermal breakdowns in various components on the circuit boards, causing a cascading component(s) failure(s) affect.

Picture Courtesy of HyperPhysics Department of Georgia State University – Development of Ripple Expressions

I thought it would be interesting and educational to hear from an expert in the engineering and circuit design field. The following is the email dialog conversation I had with Dean Palmer, engineer/owner of MicroDyne Engineering, LLC, an electronics research, design, and development services company, located in Queen Creek, Arizona, USA.

Dear Jim,

I stumbled upon your very informative “Capacitors” web page today and enjoyed your article on DIY lead free soldering and circuit repairs. I too encourage people to try to service their own stuff where possible. And this leads me to the following question:

I have a Panasonic DVD player/recorder (Model DMR-ES15) that has a recurrent “U61″ error that, in the owner’s literature, is stated more or less to be a power related problem. So I open up the unit and discover a single (but large) aluminum electrolytic cap on the main power converter sourced directly from the DC rectified AC mains. A check around the Web and I see that many owners of this product have been experiencing similar “U61″ problems with their units; some failing after only a few months of operation; most just after their 1 year warranty expires. So I get my trusty Tek 2467 scope on the circuit and I see a HUGE amount of ripple at the pins of the capacitor, yet the capacitor tests good! I replace it anyway with a good quality low ESR hi-temp Nichicon and still there is terrible ripple on that node. The power supply seems to have a load related voltage regulation problem and there is a lot of ripple and harmonic noise on the output. Doubling up on the capacitor even though there was no room on the board (had to dead-bug it) was the only way I could quiet down the circuit.

After visiting your page, I too thought that this part (or others) had possibly been damaged by the lead-free thing and the higher heat production methods used to build this unit – there is lead-free solder everywhere, even though the date of manufacture was 2006. But now I’m convinced that the part was actually under-designed for the requirements of the circuit. And, I’ve seen high ripple on computer mother board caps from time to time that caused all sorts of malfunctions and random errors/reboots, and also in a couple of LCD displays I worked on. In addition, there is an under-designed heat sink on the video processor chip in this DVD player – it gets seriously frying hot when playing back or recording a DVD – which cannot be good for the chip or it’s tiny ball grid array solder connections.

So my question to you is, why are manufacturers under-designing the circuitry in these products? Are these companies so desperate to maximize profits that they apply MTBF and service data back into the manufacturing process to find ways to cut back on design quality and circuit components to just get them through the warranty period? I’ve heard they can actually tweak this down to a granularity of weeks. Or, are we just seeing rampant designer incompetence all across the board – engineers who do not know how to do simple calculations for ripple current and thermal dissipation? Could these guys even balance their check books? What are they teaching in the EE programs these days???

I would be very interested in your thoughts on this! At any rate, Ha, it keeps me in business.

Thanks very much!

–
Dean Palmer
Engineer, NPD

MicroDyne Engineering, LLC

Queen Creek, Arizona
USA
480.888.0600
www.microdyneeng.com

—

Jim W. wrote back:

Hello Dean,

Wow, you got my mind filled with all types of thoughts. First off, my experience in the electronics field goes back more years than I care to imagine: http://jimwarholic.com/about.

I constantly see problems related to component failures more and more frequently. I honestly believe that everything is designed with a time value. Capacitors have a certain time value to heat rating. If you operate a capacitor near its maximum rating, the capacitor will last X amount of time. If you operate a capacitor at 1/2 the maximum rating, you will likely get 2X life or more out of the capacitor. So, it comes down to the engineers specifying the ratings on the capacitors without fully understanding the time value. The differences in costs are very very minuscule if anything at all. But, when they call for a value of 2200 uF cap at 10 volts because the maximum voltage might be only 10 volts, but the circuit is actually operating at 10 volts, then in essence the capacitor is operating at 100% of its maximum voltage. They could just as easily installed a 16 volt capacitor, that might be slightly larger, (though they would have had to design for this larger size) but would have lasted probably more than twice as long, because it would have only been operating at 63% of its maximum operating voltage, and more than likely would have operated at a cooler temperature too. So, the engineers need to take into account the time value, which is probably not being stressed at all.

These power circuits generate tons of heat on their own, and that also is not being taken into account. This causes a cascade effect, which causes more heat, and more breakdown, and more heat, etc.

Here are a couple of pointers to consider when troubleshooting power supply circuits. Most power supply circuits start with full wave rectification. If only one half of the rectification process is working, the capacitors will not be able to filter the voltage properly. Also, there are many times the regulator circuits are failing. So, the voltage drops under load, the regulator can not keep up and therefore the caps try to maintain the voltage, but heat builds up due to excessive current draw.

With the push towards smaller, more compact designs, this causes the engineers to simply go with the smallest of the specs that they can get away with. So, when the final design comes out, and it goes out for build, the builder (assembly house) simply follows the component specs and then gets its supply of components sent from the manufacturer. Once again, at each leg of the manufacturing process, the specs are used as the guide. If the specs are just of a minimal value, and the manufacturer supplies the component with that value, the question comes down to, who’s fault is it?

Did the engineer look at a data sheet of components and see that the standard is a 2000 hr. rated capacitor at TEMP, OP. MAX:105(DEGREE C) and in essence say that will be good enough? Probably. Did the manufacturer of the component, simply target the minimum standard? Probably.

Have computer companies looked at the life cycle of computers being somewhere between three and five years, and say, that if it lasts for four or five years it’s probably good enough? My guess is yes.

However, computers have gotten to the point where even if you go twice as fast for most activities, it really doesn’t matter much. So, more and more of us are keeping our computers for a longer period of time.

Does the manufacturer hold some degree of responsibility for a design that should last longer than the warranty period? And if so, how long? The short answer, is yes. However, the long answer is much more complex than meets the eye. There is always a trade off between price, design, and life expectancy.

I was really ticked off, and still am ticked off to this day, when my Apple failed, two months out of warranty, and the Genius Bar folks said, “Why don’t you just buy a new iMac? The price of a new one is only several hundred dollars more than the parts for the old one.” It was at that point, I had to taken action in my own hands. http://jimwarholic.com/apple

Thank you for listening. Maybe I will post this online, without adding your name to the mix.

Regards,

Jim

Dean Palmer wrote:

Thanks Jim for answering my question! I appreciate your comments very much. And I am right with you on being very upset that your MAC dies right after the warranty period is up. I think that manufacturers should be held accountable for the quality of their products. I know that in reality, it’s “Buyer Beware!” – “If you don’t like my brand, buy someone else’s” … but really, is that the way you’d want YOUR company to do business? The whole attitude out there seems to be “make as much money as you can with as little cost as possible put into it…” – that seems to be capitalism at its worst where greed and lust for wealth and profit creates an environment where crap is king and corporations are driven to make things as cheap as they can get away with! But in the end, we are ALL consumers of products and services. Even the CEO Of SONY, or Toshiba, or in my case, Panasonic – all are consumers. When he goes to buy his Mercedes Benz, would HE be satisfied that it just (barely) meets the warranty period before some major failure occurs? No! He’ll be on the phone to Mercedes to raise hell about it!

So whatever happened to having pride in your product and its quality of workmanship? As you pointed out, for just a few cents more, a better suited capacitor could have been used in the circuit and this would have avoided thousands of upset consumers and calls to service centers. The way I see it, it’s a reputation thing as well as being an ethical matter. When I do a design for my Clients, I want my design to be the best it can be. I was raised by a very demanding and “military authoritative” father who insisted on perfection; to do the best job you can do – or don’t do the job at all. So it’s in my makeup to give my Clients 110 percent on every project that crosses my desk. I will cut corners in design or materials ONLY if they tell me to do so, but with great reservation and reluctance. And for the money I pay for a new TV set, I expect it to last for many years. My parents had an old Motorola Quasar “Works In The Drawer” TV that we had for probably 12 or more years. It was a hybrid design made with tubes and transistors, and a couple ICs. It lasted until the picture tube finally gave up. Wow! But these days, this kind of quality and reliability just isn’t seen anymore. It’s very sad really, especially in the light of technology being so advanced – you could build a DVD player that should last 20 years. And as consumers, have we, for the most part, become used to mediocrity in everything we buy?

No matter what brand I choose, it’s gonna have problems? There just has to be a balance between profits and getting your new gizmo to market before the competition, and building a product of decent quality and reliability. And it seems that the consumer public – you and me included – needs to drive this shift in corporate paradigm by DEMANDING high quality and exceptional reliability from manufacturers. And by the same token, we should also be willing to pay a little extra for it. If I want to buy some off-brand TV set for 79 bucks at Walmart, I can do that, and I’ll get what I get. But when I pay $895.00 for a bran new shiny SONY with all the bells and whistles that even pours me coffee, I EXPECT it to last and last and last. Maybe I’m too much the old school, I don’t know. But I would NEVER design in a 10 volt capacitor into a 10 volt circuit! I “might” design a 20 volt part in there if I’m in a good mood. But I’ll probably and most likely use a 50 volter! And really, what does that do to the end cost of the product? Not much.

There are so many other factors that go into the total cost to manufacture and sell an appliance. One of the biggies is that damn paranoia about lead in the environment (RoHS)! For God’s Sake, don’t people know that lead comes from the ground in the first place? How much of this is political and how much of it really makes sense in the name of public health and the environment? And a lot of the cost to make a product comes from efficiency and the internal structure of the company. Some companies are so wasteful and inefficient that they could build their products lined with gold if they’d just cut out the waste and inefficient practices, and perhaps limit those million dollar bonuses to CEOs. The list is endless, but taking such clean up measures would pay for a better capacitor, diode, or heat sink a thousand fold. And personally, I will pay more as long as I KNOW that I am buying quality. The tires on my car and the brakes I use are the best money can buy. There are some things you just don’t cheapen your way out of! I can buy a cheap DVD player if I want. But I probably won’t. I want good quality at a reasonable price. And I adhere to the Three-To-One policy: for a one year warranty, a product should last three years at the very minimum! Really, warranties are to protect the consumer from DOAs and accidental defects that can sometimes occur in manufacturing or materials. It should NOT be an indicator as to how long I can expect the product to work!

I’ve enjoyed our conversation Jim! Thank you for allowing me to rant. And you may use my name in connection with any of my comments you wish to publish. I hope if you do publish this dialog, it will get people visiting your site to thinking – and demanding – quality and reliability. Next to a fair price, what else matters?

-Dean Palmer

Dean Palmer
Engineer, NPD

MicroDyne Engineering, LLC

Queen Creek, Arizona
USA
480.888.0600
www.microdyneeng.com

“MicroDyne Engineering provides Electronics Design, Research and Development (R&D) and Prototype Design and Assembly services to customers and clients who wish to bring a new technology product idea from concept to actual hardware realization. Their goal is to provide clients and customers with product designs and solutions for markets and applications that would benefit from innovation and value-added product designs.

Reverse-Engineering services can also be provided for existing technology products and devices where the original documentation and component sources are non existent or no longer available.”

Thank you Dean for sharing your insight into the wonderful world of electronics research, design, and product development, with this first hand look into engineering and design of electronics’ products. The mind of an engineer is …

I would also like to extend a big thank you to Dean for granting permission to reprint this here.

Note, all copyrights are reserved.

Regards,

Jim Warholic

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My PC friends probably think I am crazy, but the weight of the decision of why I purchased an Apple MacBook Pro fell on five key points of comparisons to other laptop computers.

Apple MacBook Pro vs. Netbook PCs

1. Ease of Use
2. Quality
3. Versatility
4. Form Factor
5. Value (Price divided by the first four points)

My notebook story begins with searching for a good quality, fast speed, good display screen, a comfortable track pad, good software, ease of use, long life battery, ability to do videos and pictures well, but low priced netbook or small laptop for mobile/portable/travel use. I quickly found that there is no such creature like this.

I stopped in over at Fry’s and started playing with the various new Windows 7 Netbooks from Acer and MSI. At first glance I wanted to really like these netbooks, but it was only a short lived infatuation. There were more than a few barriers to taking these netbooks from a foolish liking to an in-depth affection. For one, they were small. Now, that may be good in one aspect for portability, but for another aspect of screen size, it was very difficult to get comfortable with the small screen size. Those of us that are requiring reading glasses are sure to find these screens are much too small. Sure, the price was low at around $350.00, but look at what you are getting for that.

With these netbooks, this really is a case of getting what you pay for. Slow processor speeds, low memory, no dvd/cd drive, and a new operating system with Windows 7 that is all déjà vu. The Windows 7 operating system loaded on these netbooks feels like an upgraded version of Windows XP, with things moved around a bit and other things very difficult to find. Of course, this is the dominate format for these netbooks. Simple things like how to change the icon sizes on the desktop took me 10 minutes to find. And, that was after I spoke with the sales people, though that brings up the topic of the sales people may not have the best of training either. That’s another story. In any case, three of the sales people that I spoke with could not figure it out. It wasn’t located in the Windows 7 control panel area, as one would think. Finally I did what would be a right click with a mouse on the desktop, though I am not sure how I did it with the netbook trackpad, but I was able to change the default icon size to a smaller size.

Speaking of touchpads or trackpads, I have grown up on a mouse in the house for both PCs and Macs. So, this really was my first time investigating and comparing track pads. The trackpads on these netbooks and mini laptops seemed to be engineering afterthoughts. Actually, they lacked quality engineering and no consumer testing. The one that bugged the heck out of me the most was the trackpad on the MSI mini laptop. It felt like sandpaper on the tips of my fingers after playing with it for 10 minutes. Actually, I ended up pulling another customer over and asking him what he thought of the touchpad. His thoughts were exactly the same as mine. The trackpad had a very textured finish that was not comfortable to the touch. I can only imagine what it would be like after navigating with this trackpad for an hour or so. I would have to put Band-Aids on my fingers. Definitely not a very good touchy-feely experience.

So, I decide that maybe I needed to move up in price and screen size. I moved up to the mid range for laptops. However, there seemed to be a void in the size from the 8.9 inch – 11 inch version mini laptops to the 15 inch larger laptops. Price started going up significantly as I wanted a more powerful laptop that could do various types of mult-tasking, and still stay with a useful but compact size. Next thing I knew, I was up around the $700.00 price tag. But, still I had issues with trackpads, and the lack of ease of use.

So, I ventured over to the Mac table. Being an equal opportunity user of both Windows PCs and Macs and am well versed in both the PC and Mac land, having owned many versions of Windows PCs and an iMac G5 for a number of years. I have also had the opportunity to have hands on experience by having friends allowing me to play with their MacBooks for various applications. When I went over to the Mac table, it was a breath of heaven to feel and touch the new MacBooks.

My First Thoughts on the MacBook and MacBook Pro

The first thing that stood out to me was the ease of use. The trackpads are very very easy to use. Having a Multi-Touch Trackpad that is large, smooth, extremely powerful, two finger scroll capable, two finger pinch zoom capable, two finger rotate, and even two finger right click or secondary click capable with the full complement of right click commands available. Additional trackpad features include three finger swipe navigation to go forward or back in browser history, four finger swipe left to right to switch applications, or four finger swipe up down for exposing the open applications. You can even set the one finger to tap to click, dragging, drag lock, and secondary click to bottom left or bottom right corner. Track speed, double-click speed, and scrolling speed can all be individually adjusted to just the way you want them.

With this MacBook Trackpad, you will quickly find out that a person can go from using a mouse to very easily using the Multi-Touch Trackpad in no time flat.

Another aspect of the MacBook that makes it a joy to work with, is the ease of use of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. While any new software will take time getting use to, the learning curve for the Mac OS X is very fast. I think part of the reason for this is the intuitiveness of how the things are laid out. Apple also has some very good quick training videos that are quite helpful. Take a look at some of the Mac tutorials on how to do things.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system is a pleasure to work with. It is very intuitive, which makes for a very easy transition to go from working with a Windows based machines to a Mac based operating systems. Of course, I am a bit biased in this area, since I have been using both Windows and Mac machines for quite some time. Never the less, some friends of mine who had been with Windows their whole lives, recently made the switch to Mac, and the operating system switch proved to be a very easy transition for them.

The high quality of the Apple MacBooks can not be overstated. Everything fits together like a form fitting glove. The opening of the screen display has just the right amount of hinge tightness. As I stated before, the trackpad is very smooth, and seems to just fit perfectly for your hands and fingers on the keyboard area. The keyboard has automatic backlighting, which in dim environments is great for quick reference. The MacBook Pro comes in a very sleek, 1.08 inches thin, aluminum unibody construction.

I bought the 13.3 inch MacBook Pro with the glossy widescreen display. This for me was the perfect fit for size and portability, but has plenty of desktop space with a screen of 1280-by-800 pixel resolution, made this one the ideal laptop solution for viewing documents, web sites, videos, and pictures.

The weight of the MacBook Pro 13 inch at 4.7 pounds is very manageable. It easily fits into a briefcase or backpack. I also suggest a carrying case to protect your MacBook. I decided to go with the Incase Nylon Sleeve Case for the Apple 13 inch MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro fits perfectly in this padded case and provides extra storage areas on both sides for accessories. The case and the MacBook Pro worked out perfectly for a recent vacation trip from California to Florida with several layovers. The case added the extra protection and allowed me to quickly place the MacBook in my carryon suitcase, and quickly remove it for airport security checks. The case also comes with a removable shoulder strap and is available in three colors, black, graphite, and mustard.

The MacBook Pro is such a pleasure to use for all aspects of computing. For example, when it comes to viewing video on the screen, it is second to none. The display is rich in color, bright, and vivid to look at. Movies are cool to watch and when it comes to catching up on your television shows like Flash Forward episodes, it is incredible to watch it on the MacBook. It’s as though watching it on the MacBook Pro is better than on the TV screen. The stereo sound quality from the computer is great too. The audio level has decibels of sound to spare. You can actually make the sound too loud for others in the room. Forget trying that with any other netbook.

With the built-in iSight camera and microphone, doing a Google Video Chat was simply amazing. The camera and built-in microphone worked great together. I was able to use the camera in both low light and regular lighting conditions. The chat session was perfect. There was no audio feedback and the person on the other end said the audio and video were perfect too.

The battery life is rated at 7 hours, but that is under somewhat controlled conditions. Apple quotes the following from their website:

Testing conducted by Apple in May 2009 using preproduction 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Pro units. Battery life depends on configuration and use. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.

I typically like my screen brighter than 50%, and was able to generally get about 5+ hours of battery usage on three battery cycles. However, I was playing videos, browsing the Internet through wireless connections, and searching for other wireless Internet connections during this time.

The charging plug is held in place with a super strong magnet, which if someone catches the cord will simply pull the connector off the MacBook without pulling the MacBook down to the floor. Definitely a great safety feature. the charger is very compact, and fits nice and flat inside one of the Incase pockets I bought for the MacBook Pro.

The MacBook Pro 13 inch that I purchased has the 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; which supports up to 8GB of memory, 250GB Serial ATA; 5400 rpm hard drive, and 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW).

MacBook Pro Features

Left Side View of MacBook Pro 13 Inch Model

Connections and Expansion Ports

• MagSafe power port
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
• Mini DisplayPort
• Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
• SD card slot
• Audio in/out
• Kensington lock slot

Communications

• Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on IEEE 802.11n draft specification); IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible
• Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)

Audio

• Built-in stereo speakers
• Built-in omnidirectional microphone
• Combined optical digital output/headphone out (user-selectable analog audio line in)
• Supports Apple Stereo Headset with microphone

Read more about all the MacBook Pro features today.

By the way, if a person really wants to have their cake and eat it too, in the form of Windows 7 on their MacBook, there is another feature that lets a person load any operating system they wish. Boot Camp is a utility included with Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" and v10.6 "Snow Leopard" operating systems that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or 7 on Intel-based Macintosh computers. Boot Camp guides users through non-destructive re-partitioning (including resizing of an existing HFS+ partition, if necessary) of their hard disk drive and using the Mac OS X Leopard disc to install Windows drivers. In addition to device drivers for the hardware, the disc includes an applet for the Windows control panel for selecting the boot operating system.

In addition to Boot Camp, there are other avenues that are also available such as, VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop that provide the means of loading Microsoft Windows and other non Windows operating systems such as Linux OS onto the MacBook computers. Both VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop are helpful software applications that allow folks to run Windows applications directly and concurrently on their MacBooks and quickly switch between the two.

VMware Fusion 3

Parallels Desktop

VirtualBox

There is also an open source software, VirtualBox, available from Sun. VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by German software company Innotek, now developed by Sun Microsystems as part of its Sun xVM virtualization platform. It is installed on an existing host operating system; within this application, additional operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment.

“Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.”

I have to say that the MacBook Pro is really a great all purpose laptop computer for business, school, and personal use. With ease of use, superb quality, immense versatility, and an awesome form factor, the value of this MacBook Pro computer is outstanding. You won’t want to leave home without it! Checkout the online Amazon Apple Store deals today.

Jim Warholic

Jim Warholic is President of Professional Web Services, Inc., an Internet Marketing Services firm specializing in B2B and B2C Internet marketing, SEO services, online advertising, and online branding strategies. Contact Professional Web Services today.

The days of using a 20 watt soldering iron from Radio Shack are long gone when it comes to repairing lead free soldered circuits in Apple Computers, PCs, and other lead-free electronics equipment.

With multilayer boards, thick ground planes and power planes, and high temperature circuit board materials, along with countries having bans on the use of leaded solder in circuit boards; electronic components are now being attached using lead-free wave soldering or pick-and-place machines using conductive epoxy flux adhesives and then heat cured. All of this adds up to quite a bit of difficulty in reworking and repairing circuit boards today.

While it is good to keep our environment clean, I think the wide spread use of lead-free solder in printed circuit board assembly processes is a case filled with a manufacturing life of unintended consequences. There are major challenges that have and continue to affect printed circuit board manufacturing around the world. First off, PCB materials must be able to withstand lead-free soldering temperatures of up to 260[degrees]C during the assembly operation. [1] This in itself, requires the use of more expensive, and much more difficult materials to work with at the PCB manufacturing stages. Not only is the multilayer construction much more difficult to deal with, but the drilling of the holes in thick multilayer circuit boards, with circuit board materials that are of a "harder" material nature, as compared to traditional FR-4 resin systems (not designed for lead-free), directly adds to the manufacturing costs involved.

I also find it interesting, that about the time where the world (pushed by the European Union) started converting over to using lead-free PCB manufacturing techniques, there seems to be a correlation between the electrolytic capacitor failures that started to occur a short time later in TVs, Set-Top Boxes, Computers, PCs from Dell, Apple, and other computer manufacturers, along with a host of other high powered electronic gadgets. I have no way of proving it, but I suspect that many of these components were hit with a large temperature blast through either high temperature wave soldering processes or oven based curing used in the finished component filled PCB assemblies.

“With a melting point of 217°C, SAC solder also is closest in melting point to the conventional lead–tin solder. This does mean, however, a yet-unquantified increase in energy use. Furthermore, the higher temperature may pose problems for the electronics industry. Higher temperatures mean more stress on components and the entire manufacturing process, notes Geibig. Higher temperatures also mean increases in the time it takes to make products, because more time is required to heat and cool the products during the course of their manufacture.” [2]

On July 1, 2006 the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) came into effect, prohibiting the intentional addition of lead to most consumer electronics produced in the EU. California recently adopted a RoHS law and China has a version as well. [3] In order to meet the new directives established by the EU on removing the lead from electronics, has greatly affected the PCB assembly world at large. In effect, countries that did not have directives for the use of lead-free electronics assembly, were forced by default of having to build to meet the international requirements from the EU.

“This directive (EU Directive 2002/95/EC) places a restriction on the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical or electronic equipment sold or used in the European Union (EU) after July 1, 2006 with some exemptions.” [4]

‘Within the United States, California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act imposes a fee on “covered electronic devices” currently being sold within the state. This fee is intended to cover the cost of properly disposing of the products when they become waste. Second, it requires “covered electronic devices” sold in California after January 1, 2007 to meet the same requirements as those found in European Union Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation. Electronic devices containing toxic metals and not complying may not be manufactured, sold, or imported into California after January 1, 2007.’ [4] Other states have enacted similar laws.

So, what does that mean for circuit board and electronics repair folks today looking for ways to extend the service lives of their equipment? Well, there are some special soldering techniques that are involved to do the electronic repair jobs right.

What is required to repair lead-free circuit boards with large discrete components?

These lead-free soldering tips are specifically geared toward the large discrete components such as: electrolytic capacitors, transistors, diodes, bridge rectifiers, and coils (inductor chokes). Information on how to repair and replace surface mount devices with lead-free soldering techniques is waiting for a later date to be written.

1. The soldering iron at a minimum needs to be 60 watts, and have the right tip for the right job. If you are trying to solder on a thick multilayer PCB, then a wide tip is absolutely required to do the job right. There is a difference between the lead-free tips and the old standard tips used for the standard 60/40 Tin Lead (60/40 Sn/Pb) Solder. 60/40 Sn/Pb melts at 370 °F or 188 °C while various lead-free solders used in PCB assembly have a melting point range of 415-441 °F or 213-227 °C . It is important to note that the increase in the melting temperature for lead-free solder, does not tell the whole story for proper solder joints involved with component replacements and PCB repairs.

You might be thinking, that the soldering iron I have gets up to 850 °F, I should be able to repair any lead-free soldered component on any PCB. That is wrong thinking here. I mentioned at the beginning about having a wide tip when soldering a thick multilayer. But, you need more than a wide tip. The soldering iron, at the tip, must be able to quickly recover on the heat cycle. It must also be able to supply the heat continually at a constant temperature, or near constant temperature to do the job right. This is where the wattage of the soldering iron is a factor for delivering the heat continually.

A thick multilayer PCB acts like a huge heatsink, sucking the heat away from the area that you want it, and dissipating it over the area where it is not required. If you use a small caliber soldering iron to try and remove components on this type of PCB, you will more than likely simply heat up the circuit board in a wide area, including the component itself before the solder will ever melt. In fact, it is quite likely that the lead-free solder will never melt, because the soldering iron can not quickly and effectively localize the heat in a high enough concentration to do any good. Actually you will probably do more harm than good.

I have heard from some folks, and talking from experience, that you will end up throwing a few choice words around that will not endear yourself to your spouse, if you try to use a low powered soldering iron. Even if you do manage to remove the component, the new component you install will have either the poorest of a solder joint, making you look like an amateur, or worse, an overly heated and damaged component that will result in early failure. Solder joints made with a low wattage soldering iron will likely result in cold solder joints, which will result in poor electrical connectivity and a non-working circuit board.

How about a portable butane powered soldering iron, won’t that work better? Been there and done that. Take it from experience, the answer to that question is no. I tried a wide tipped butane powered soldering iron and I was not able to even make a dent in the lead-free solder on a Apple iMac G5 motherboard.

What about a soldering gun? Once again, been there, done that. It doesn’t work with even the highest powered soldering gun. Soldering guns are not really designed for circuit board repairs. Take it from experience, put this idea out of your mind, it won’t work.

So Jim, what do you recommend in a soldering iron? Do you recommend a lead free soldering iron or a lead free soldering station? Let me first say here, that I have recommended some soldering irons and soldering stations to folks that have written to me and asked for my advice on various Apple repairs, and I would be more than happy to recommend something if you send me an email request. I will say this, that you can get a very good one at a very decent price. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a soldering station. However, don’t make the mistake and think you can get by with the old hobby soldering iron that you have in the desk drawer. Trying to use a substandard, low wattage soldering iron for lead-free motherboard repairs will give you headaches galore.  Actually, I would like to hear more from readers of what you have used for lead free soldering.

2. What is the best way to remove the electronic component such as a electrolytic capacitor off a thick multilayer PCB once I have a good soldering iron or soldering station? I suggest you have the PCB standing up on edge, so that you can work from both sides of the circuit board. Check out the Chip Quik kit for removing the capacitors in difficult circuit boards. While heating up one leg of a radial electrolytic capacitor from the bottom, and at the same time slightly pushing the capacitor from the top, away from the leg being heated, at which time the solder starts to melt, the capacitor leg will start to move out of the hole. Do this for the other leg, alternating back and forth to each leg, and slowly work out the capacitor from the hole as the solder melts. After the capacitor is removed, a solder sucker can be used to remove a lot of the excess solder in and around the circuit pad. Using solder wick, (also referred to as desoldering wick or desoldering braid) on the thicker boards does not work well because of the extra heatsinking that occurs when the solder wick is applied. At this stage of the component replacement repair, invariably, not all the solder will come out of the holes with the use of a good quality solder sucker. This is where I suggest using my next soldering tip.

3. Try using a sewing pin, with a plastic head, and heat up the tip and the solder pad at the same time, once the caps are removed. This will push the solder out of the holes and solder will not stick to the steel sewing pins. Stop in at your local sewing machine center and you will find a large assortment of sewing pin sizes. Select a sewing pin size that matches up to the size of the leg of the capacitor. Once the pin is pushed through the hole, continue to apply heat to the pin and the pad, and move it in and out, making the hole the right size for your new components.

4. Is it best to use lead-free solder when installing the replacement capacitors? I have mixed thoughts on this. On the one hand, since the board is already using a lead-free solder, I would say stay with using lead-free solder. However, the standard solder is much easier to work with, and because it has a lower melting point, it seems to work fine. One negative item to be aware of here, is there may be a reduction in the soldering iron tip life if using the special plated tips designed for lead-free soldering, and using leaded solder.

I do have one major item that must be adhered to; only use a rosin core type of solder. Do not use acid flux. No acid flux. Acid core solder and acid flux will damage the circuit board and/or the components. With that being said, it is important that what ever solder is used, that the old solder and the new solder join (melt) together when installing the new components. Be careful with this that you don’t under heat or over heat your work. Just the right amount will do. It is hard to describe how much, and how long the heat should be applied to get a good solder joint. Take a close look at your solder joints. If they seem to be loose, then reapply the heat until the old and the new become one. As an additional note, and I have to say once again as a matter of importance, remember that the components themselves do not like it too hot for too long.

To properly solder motherboard capacitors on thick MOBs, you will need to operate the soldering iron or soldering station temperatures at or near maximum temperature settings. Heat up the pad on the bottom first and foremost by having most of the soldering tip on the pad; while at the same time having the tip touch the capacitor leg. I strongly suggest using lead free rosin core solder with a no clean residue; which you can purchase with your capacitors order at www.jwestsales.com. The no clean flux rosin core solder simply means that the center of the solder has a flux rosin core that is activated by heat, and the remaining residual flux does not need to be cleaned off the circuit board and will not harm the onboard circuitry. Remember also, that the MOB has residual lead free solder already present on the circuit pad and lining the circuit board hole walls, and must be melted (typically referred to as “wetting” action) with the new solder to form a good solder joint. If you use standard 60/40 lead solder for soldering, it is much more difficult to do the job just right, and is much more likely to produce cold solder joints because the different types of solders melt at substantially different temperatures and will not properly join together.

Be careful of other small components and surface mount devices (SMD) on the bottom and top of the boards. These devices are so small, that many times they can be damaged or unattached to the PCB simply by accidentally placing the soldering iron tip on the surface mounted component soldered leads, either moving it or bridging the leads with solder. So what I am saying is, try to use a steady hand.

The picture above, of the custom circuit board clamping hands-free support system, is the brainchild of Paul N. — Grayslake, IL. Paul writes, “You can buy a 12" x 2.5" (depth) wood-working clamp from Home Depot for about $10 and a 3" ‘C’ clamp for another $5. Then apply some adhesive-backed, dense foam rubber on each face of the wood-working clamp. Note that I removed the hard rubber covers that were on the clamp originally.” Paul calls the device the, “Kludged Circuit Board Clamp.” It is important to note that when clamping the circuit board with any clamping device, that you do not position the clamps on top of any components or the very small low profile SMDs on either side of the PCB.

There is another lead free soldering/unsoldering components helper that is simply amazing! Check out the video of the Chip Quik lead-free unsoldering kit and system of replacing components on circuit boards. I highly recommend this patented SMD and discrete components removal kit.

Read more about Apple iMac G5 Motherboard and Apple Power Supply Repairs.

Feel free to contact me at anytime.

Jim Warholic

Sources:
[1] The effects of lead-free on PCB fabrication: assemblers may bear most of the brunt of the…

[2] Getting the Lead Out of Electronics

[3] Solder: Wikipedia

[4] Why Should I Care About RoHS and Lead-Free Initiatives?

When an Apple iMac G5 locks up on you, it might mean the hard drive is bad.

Many folks have contacted me over the past number of months about their Apple iMac G5 problems they have been having because of bad motherboards or power supplies. Well, I thought I would share a story of my own, in regards to trouble shooting a bad iMac G5, in the hopes that it might help some of the folks out there in Apple iMac Computer land.

I recently picked up a used iMac that was giving the previous owner fits, in that it would eventually, after some time of being turned on, would lock up on them and only show the Apple logo at startup with the little circle going round and round. The fans would start turning at full speed. Once this occurred, the only way to get it back up and running was a fresh load of the software from the DVD disk back on to the hard drive.

Prior to loading the software back on the hard drive, I had gone through the procedure of checking out the capacitors on both the motherboard and the power supply unit, but did not see any signs of capacitor trauma, as in; bulging, leaking, or blown capacitor bodies. When having an iMac G5, it is always wise to begin with a visual inspection of both the motherboard and the PSU. Refer to my write-ups on repairing the Apple iMac G5 motherboard and how to repair an iMac G5 power supply unit for complete details.

I tried resetting the PRAM (Parameter RAM) and also tried resetting the SMC/PMU [System Management Controller (Intel Macs) or Power Management Unit (PowerPC Macs)]. I also tried replacing the PRAM backup battery (Energizer 2032) that retains the small amount of nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) for the PRAM. This is where the date and computer settings are stored when the computer is turned off. None of this made any difference on my iMac lockup problem. Here is a very good article overview of the PRAM and SMC/PMU failure symptoms and when to reset the PRAM and SMC/PMU.

Well, after repeated hardware tests, with no indications that any hardware was bad (so much for hardware tests), I pulled out the old Maxtor 250 GB hard drive and tried reformatting it externally and backing up one of my other iMacs to this hard drive using a USB connection and an external hard drive adapter. The backup was completed successfully, and I returned the hard drive into the original iMac G5 cassis, and it booted up. Well, this was only a short term success. The iMac locked up when trying to do a software update. I was thinking that the software might be locking up because it was installed on the other iMac and registered on the other iMac. So, once again I took a brand new Leopard software disk family pack, and tried loading it on the hard drive again. No luck on this software load either. It bombed out part way through the loading process and returned to the Apple logo going round and round on startup.

Well, I am not one to let a little Apple logo roadblock stop me from getting to my iMac computer land destination. So out I go to my local Frys store (Frys is a large electronics store on the West Coast and another 8 states) to find out the best deal on a serial ATA hard drive. I didn’t want to spend a fortune, and I wanted to get the best value for the money. I ended up purchasing a Hitachi 640 GB HD for around 70 dollars. I figured I could always use this drive on something else if it didn’t work to fix the problem on this iMac.

So, I brought it home, opened it up, placed the mounting brackets on the new hard drive, mounted it in the iMac, and buttoned the whole computer back up. I then placed the Mac OS X Leopard DVD install disk in the slot, turned it on, held down the “C” key on startup. I then used the disk utility to format and mount the hard drive. Then loaded a fresh installation of OS X Leopard, did the updates, and have been running terrific for three weeks or so with no problems. I even added a “matched set” of PC 3200 1GB memory sticks for a total of 2GB of RAM. Now, I am a bit jealous for my own original iMac G5 computer with Mac OS X Panther installed. I think I will upgrade my other 20 inch iMac G5 to Leopard too. But that is a project for another day, and I am told that you have to do a fresh install too. Which means backing up and transferring the files over to the new installation.

Well, for the time being I am on happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Jim Warholic

When it comes to fixing your Apple iMac G5, I’ve got the repair solutions for you.

• Do it yourself motherboard repairs.
• Do it yourself power supply repairs.
• MOB and PSU capacitors for sale.
• Specialty screwdrivers and Torx bits for sale.
• Arctic Silver thermal heat sink compounds for sale for Apple, Intel, AMD CPUs and for use between other modern high-powered CPUs and high performance heatsinks or water-cooling solutions.

J West Sales Store – eCommerce to the World

Find Apple iMac G5 capacitor kits for mother boards and power supplies available to purchase online. Arctic Silver Thermal Heatsink Compound and computer tools are available too. Apple iMac G5 extra long life (10,000 hours) low ESR Caps.

See What’s on the Computer Tap Today

I’m adding new items for sale on a regular basis at J West Sales eCommerce Store, so check back with me later. In the mean time, if you are looking for something special, or would like to see me carry some other products for sale, let me know, and I’ll see if I can track them down for you. Contact Jim Warholic today.

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Updated information on the floppy disk drives hardware interfaces and FDD emulators to replace 3.5 inch, 5.25 inch, and 8 inch floppy disk drive units. These devices are not external USB floppy disk drives, but direct floppy disk drive replacements for internal original equipment manufacturers floppy disk drives. In other words, if the OEM computer has a standard 34 pin floppy disk drive cable, these devices are plug and play. No USB port is required on the OEM computer for the floppy emulators to function. This is follow up information to my first article on the subject: The Floppy Disk Drive Engineering Design Challenge SSD to FDD

Pictured above from right to left are old legacy 3 1/2, 5 1/4, and 8 inch floppy disk drives which have been installed in OEM computers. The floppy disk drive emulators replace these old legacy floppy disk drives with a simple plug-and-play emulator device. No computer USB ports are required for operation. In fact the three floppy disk drive emulator devices shown below are designed for computers that do not have USB ports.

Readers have been asking for quite some time if I have found out any more information on the FDD SDD interfaces.

How is the FDD SDD interface shaping up?

I would like to see a device in a 3.5″ form factor to fit in existing housings.
It should have a SD slot in the front with a LED or LCD display, up/down buttons and a soft eject/reinsert button, this way you can dial up the appropriate floppy image and then soft-insert it.

Because the FD drive interface uses control signals to physically step the motor and heads, the interface will need an MCU such as a Pic to act as a interpreter between the memory buffer (720k or 1.44k) and the interface. A second MCU should be used to interface the SD card to the memory buffer.

Disk images can be stored in individual folders on the SD card and accessed incrementally.

The unit will also need several hardware switches to emulate the various non-standard formats (i.e.: disk insert notification) adopted by early manufacturers.

Just a couple of thoughts. I think this device has potential to be a very popular eBay item.

Cheers,

Q

In response to those emails, and thank you for sending all those emails to me by-the-way; below is FDD information that I think many engineers and end users will find very useful and some possible solutions to the old legacy floppy disk drives.

Apparently there are a few FDD hardware replacement solutions from several companies called “floppy disk drive emulators” for the old floppy disk drives in legacy equipment.

A. I listed these FDD emulator manufacturers in no apparent order.

ipcas – USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1

The USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 is from ipcas GmbH, a company located in Germany. The USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 device is a direct replacement for the old legacy floppy diskette drives. The connections on the back of this FDD emulator are identical to that of the old floppy disk drives. On the back of this device is the 34-pin socket where the floppy disk drive cable gets plugged in, and the +5 volt DC standard power connection for the floppy drive also plugs in to the back side.

The front side of the device accepts a USB Stick, which acts like the floppy disk, but stores up to 100 virtual floppy disk drives on the USB Stick, with each number representing the virtual floppy disk drive being accessed. Simply select the desired virtual floppy (0-99) with the selection button to choose which virtual floppy you wish to access from the USB Stick front plug in.

According to the USB Floppy Disk Emulator User Manual, “The ipcas Floppy Disk Emulator can also replace other forms of disk drives and disk storage systems. Refer to the comparison with a 5¼ inch floppy disk drive with 1.2 MB floppies.”

Pictured below is the backside view of the ipcas USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 device.

Notice on the picture above, the standard 34 pin floppy disk connector and the standard power connector. These connectors are plugged into the existing OEM computers, (where a floppy disk drive would be installed) and the front side is where the USB stick would be inserted.

The beauty of this device is that no driver or configuration software is required to install and operate this floppy disk emulator with old legacy equipment. The manual states, “Many machines and devices are still using floppy disk drives as the only means of data input. CNC, milling, injection mold, or embroidery machines, laser cutting devices and integrated control systems, just to mention a few, are still being fed data with floppy disks several times a day.”

B. The Next Floppy Disk Emulator Device

PLR Electronics – 3 ½ floppy drive to USB flash drive reader upgrade

PLR Electronics specializes in the embroidery machine circuit boards. They also have been involved in repairing other circuit board equipment too. PLR Electronics sells the 3½ floppy drive to USB flash drive reader upgrade device. PLR Electronics claims that the device will “work successfully on · CNC Machines · Embroidery Machines · Keyboards · Knitting Machines · Diagnostics Machines · Cutters · Routers · And most any machines with a Floppy Disk Drive.”

The backside of the emulator has the power connection plug and the floppy disk drive cable plug. Simply remove the old floppy drive cable and power connection, and plug it into the FDD emulator. The front side of the device has the USB Flash Drive Port, a File Chooser Connector Port, and even a Network port connection to another computer. The file chooser provides a means of selecting which files on the USB Flash Drive you wish to choose.

There are a number of modes of operation. SFDR-1, SFDR-II (SFDR-1 + File Chooser),  plus other modes of operation:

We request that you inform us on the original floppy drive type when placing an order to avoid mismatching the drive type. For example:

• SFDR-I-I————–Universal IBM type
• SFDR-I-A————-YD-6639D, TEAC235FG
• SFDR-I-B————-NEC 1137C
• SFDR-I-C————-YD-6037D

The picture below shows how the Floppy Drive Emulator from PLR Electronics would be installed.

Installation Instructions:

To install your 3 1?2 floppy to USB Flash Reader, with the device powered off and unplugged, simply remove the existing drive from its existing cradle. Disconnect existing ribbon cable and power cable from existing drive. Reattach existing power cable and ribbon cable to the USB Flash Reader. Insert USB Flash Reader into existing 3 1?2 floppy cradle and reattach all hardware. Your device is now ready to use. If any existing configuration is required on your system, please use all standard settings for a 3 1?2 floppy drive as detailed in your devices user manual.

Once the floppy emulator is installed, you then can use any USB Flash Stick as your floppy drive. In other words, you use a portable USB stick as the floppy. The original floppy cable plugs directly into the floppy emulator. These are not external USB floppy drives.

I would also imagine (though I have not confirmed) that if there were two floppy drives on the OEM equipment to begin with, you could hook up one of these devices and copy from one of the original floppy drives to the new emulated floppy drive onto a USB stick.

This is a plug and play device also. The 3½ floppy drive to USB flash drive reader manual provides some Frequently Asked Questions that are very informative.

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
- Q – Will this device work with a Windows NT operating system?
A – YES. This device should work with any OS assuming it is capable of working with IBM type floppies.
- Q – Will the 3 1/2 floppy to USB drive work in a XXXXXXXXX that can only read 720k 3 1/2 floppies?
A – Yes
- Q – We have XXXXXXX machines here and the floppy disk is 720K. IF we put a 1.44k in the machine the floppy drive does not work. Do you have a 720K mode on your device? T
A – Yes
- Q – Hi I am presently using a XXXXXXX keyboard which uses floppy disks on which I play my music files. Can this flash drive reader be used in my case?
A – Yes it will.
- Q – Hi, I currently have a floppy disk drive that is half the height of a standard drive. How can I modify this to work?
A – You do not need to modify anything. We offer a laptop height version. Please ask for this version when placing your order.
- Q – Is it USB 2.0?
A – No, its standard USB. However, USB 2.0 is used primarily for high speed data transfer. In this instance, the files you are using are very small so, there will be no noticeable difference.

C. On to the next storage systems emulators for replacing floppy disk drive units.

Data Storage DTX-200 Floppy Disk Drive Emulator

Datex, located in France, sells the Datastorage, storage systems emulators to replace legacy disk drives, such as Fujitsu MK2322, Control Data FSD515, Ampex, Maxtor XT1140, as well as tape drives. Datex manufactures  the DTX-200 Floppy Disk Drive Emulator. The DTX-200 is designed for directly replacing 3 1/2, 5 1/4, and 8 inch floppy disk drive units.

There are numerous options available for the Datastorage DTX200. Compact Flash cards or USB keys can be used to store data on. A floppy disk adapter card is designed specifically for the specific connection technology to directly replace each of the specific types and manufacturers model floppy disk drives.

The DTX-200 Floppy Disk Drive Emulator documentation states the following:

The DTX 200 can replace all the floppy disk drives, for example:

• 8” DRIVES: SHUGART SA850, CDC BRB8A, YE DATA , …
• 5 1/4” DRIVES:
  • Full height: SHUGART SA400, MPI 92S, TANDON TM100, …
  • Semi-height: TEAC : FD-05xx, FD-55xx, FD-235xx, EPSON : SD-681L, …
• 3 1/2” DRIVES: ALPS: AL FD 7xx, PANASONIC: JU-25xxx, SONY: MPF-520xx, MPF-920xx, …
  And all other Floppy disk drives…

The Datastorage DTX200 is designed to fit in the space of a 3.5 inch floppy drive. Apparently it is pre-programmed to have the same features as the floppy drive being replaced. It is designed to hold information on a CF (Compact Flash Memory Card), or a USB key and is designed to be used in numerous applications such as: cash registers, robots, planes, boats, and submarines. A StorageNewsletter.com press release, Datex Designed a Floppy Disk Drive Emulator, dated January 5th, 2009, stated that “this DTX200 emulator has already been installed in Japan and Taiwan, as well as in the French RATP.”

What do these Floppy Disk Drive Emulators Cost?

The cost of these Floppy Disk Drive Emulators vary considerably. At this time, I am not going to post the individual prices, because they are probably changing as I write this. The FDD Emulators go from approximately 275 USD to 1,100 USD and the cost could be more expensive depending on the added options. The links are there to the companies and the emulators in this article to compare the costs yourself.

Which one is best for your application?

There are pros and cons to each of the above floppy disk drive emulators. Some have more options than others. Certainly some of them are significantly more expensive than others, but that is not the only criteria that should be used in the evaluation process. Since I have not tried any of these emulators out myself, I feel I can not give you an honest analysis of which FDD emulator I would recommend.

If anyone does decide to use any of these floppy disk drive replacement emulators, I would sure like to get your feedback on how well they worked for you.

A reader was kind enough to post the following information in the comments section, but I wanted to post it here in case the URL hyperlinks change:

Here a complete list of the available floppy usb emulators:

• 1)
  http://members.fortunecity.it/blackvisionit/emufdd_it.htm
• 2)
  http://www.rothfus.com/SVD/index.php
• 3)
  http://embroiderydrive.com/
  http://nomorefloppies.com/
• 4)
  http://www.datexdsm.com/emulator/DTX200photo.html
• 5)
  http://www.plrelectronics.com/floppy_to_usb.php
• 6) (IPCAS & RIOC are QHSFD resellers…)
  http://qhsfd.com/product.asp
  http://www.ipcas.com/products/usb-floppy-emulator-fdd-to-udd.html
  http://www.rioc.us/ufr-usb-floppy-replacement.php

Thank you for your comments.

Fell free to send me an email, and/or post additional comments online here too.

Jim Warholic

Jim Warholic is an Internet marketer, with a background in electronics, engineering, printed circuit boards, technology, marketing, advertising, and sales. Jim is President of Professional Web Services, Inc., an Internet marketing company located in the San Francisco Bay Area; specializing in Internet marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing) online advertising, PPC (Pay Per Click advertising campaign management), SMM (Social Media Marketing) and SMM (Social Media Optimization), web branding, eCommerce solutions, and sales and marketing solutions for businesses in both the B2B and B2C market sectors.

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