IC SOCKETS FOR 8 PIN OP AMP CHIPS

[mercyfulfate]

i know about the op amp chips but whilst trying to order from steve at small bear electronics i noticed there were two different types of ic sockets?"8 pin"

which one do i need? one says dual leaf .

im going to mod a couple of pedals ,an sd1 and a couple of ts-9"s. im just not sure of the correct ic socket to buy. in terms of the exact one.



any help would be greatly appreciated! great site too by the way.

[mercyfulfate]

this one?


http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=100

[mercyfulfate]

.noboby knows?

[343 Salty Beans]

There's no difference except for the way that the IC legs fit into the socket. Dual leaf is two pieces of flat metal that are tight together...when you plug the IC into the socket, the pieces of metal are forced apart, but hold the IC in place and create solid connection points. Mill-maxes just look like little holes to me.

Dual leaf is what I have...when you look at the pins on your IC, notice the way the legs (pins) are shaped...mine get wider at the tope, which means they wouldn't fit into the Mill-max...I think. Plus, the legs of ICs aren't perfectly round...they're flatter on the sides. But the point is, I have dual leaf, whereas the mill-max look like they would'nt accept my IC's legs too gently.

The way the legs of ICs look:



Check the legs of your IC...in random speculation, maybe the mill-max ones are made for metal can ICs (with the legs that look like normal component legs). But I would go with dual leaf.

[mercyfulfate]

hey salty beans! thank you sir. i really appreciate the info. im going to mod a few pedals and i didnt know which one to use. i need a socket for the the replacements of some rc4558 and jrc4558d chips to fit into nicely. and they have the machine pin and the dual leaf.

so the dual leaf is the deal?


thanks man!

[Peter Snowberg]

Those round sockets listed as Mill-Max on the SmallBear site should possibly be titled machined receptacle or something else because you can get machined sockets from several makers. Mill-Max is one manufacturer product lines that make use of machined pins so if you see that name you know you're getting quality parts. Here's a little info from them: http://www.mill-max.com/images/products/pdf/123.pdf .

Machined sockets usually have three little tongs that grip into the surface of the pin to make a really solid contact. Anywhere you're dealing with vibration or where you need a really solid contact, machined is the only way to go.

Dual leaf sockets are like economy cars while the machined sockets are more like luxury sports cars.

Both styles work fine for most uses.

[mercyfulfate]

thank you mr.snowberg!

very very informative.

[LyleCaldwell]

I use Digikey part number ED58083-ND which is very nice.  $0.62 each.

[jrem]

the machined sockets are for multiple insertions . . .   the dual leaf limits your insertion rate (um, yeah).  So the military style machined sockets allow you to remove and reinsert thechip many times.  You'll trash the chip if you keep inserting/removing THE SAME CHIP from a dual leaf socket.  Spoken from experience.

Just get the cheap ones.  They work great, no one will ever know, unless someone determines that the machined sockets have BETTER TONE  . . .   

[343 Salty Beans]

MOJO TONE! My silver-soldered sockets with original JRC4558s crap out a golden egg every ten minutes!

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

silver soldered sockets? wait, you mean that they're not the original JRC custom made sockets??

what a pity. 

[MartyMart]

I had some "Gold plated" sockets once ..... I'm sure they sounded better  !!! 

One thing to remember, TS808/TS9's have a very SMALL space around the chip, I have some
"cheap" sockets that are way too big, smallbear's "machined" round hole sockets are small and
will fit inbetween all the components ..... Just  !!
RS Components ( UK ) have some very small 8 pin DIL sockets, with a very low profile also, but
they are 35 pence each  !! ( could be the Gold plated type )

MM.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

The best chip socket is NO socket but, I use them in two cases:
1. the chip is scarce, or worth more than $10
2. it's a programmed microprocessor & maybe the code will be improved (as if!)

But, when I use a socket I ALWAYS use machined pin sockets. They cost more, but I've seen SO many problems with crapped out leaf (AKA 'dual wipe')  sockets in old synths, that I'm allergic to them. How well any socket stands up to repeated insertions I don't know.. got up to a few hundred here in a homemade programmer adaptor plug, though, with no problems at all. Are those little "IC insertion tools" worthwhile? Hell yeah, but only if you leave enough space around the chip socket to use it .

[Mark Hammer]

Recently, in a bid to "reform" some of my misbehaving pedals and sell them to clear up some space, I've been finding a number of projects whose misbehaviour could be traced directly to the chip/socket connection.  Like many folks, I suspect, I'm guilty of having bought cheap sockets in order to have lots of them on hand, and the cheaper leaf-type sockets do not always provide for great contact, especially when dealing with older chips whose pins are not shiny sparkly new.

I've also been touting the virtues of a "contact enhancer" called Stabilant, recently.  I mention it again here because sockets and Stabilant are thematically related.  I've found that a number of my misbehaving (more like non-working) pedals were "rehabilitated" by applying small droplets of Stabilant to the pins of the leaf-type sockets I had on those boards.  Once the quality and reliability of the chip/socket contact was assured, a whole bunch of things that had given me trouble for ages started working.  My sense is that the Stabilant itself was not essential to this improvement, but rather that an improved chip/socket contact was.  That same junction could have likely been improved by use of higher quality machined sockets also.

For me, the lesson is not to use one or the other, but rather to not discount the chip/socket junction as a potential source of difficulty.  Whether it is a matter of using better sockets for those things that need to be socketed (and trust me, if you've used machined sockets, you can feel the difference when a chip is inserted), or of improving the quality of contact by some other means (e.g., something as simple as lightly scraping the IC pins free of tarnish with an X-acto knife), pay attention to that part of the construction.  It just may mean the difference between working or not working.