Am I being too anal over my resistors?

[JohnForeman]

I bought a resistor kit from amazon now i'm worried they are not good enough.  they are 1% but have thinner leads than the ones i have purchased from small bear.  I also have a kit i bought from Radio Shack (before they closed in my town) that are 5%.  I always check the values before i use them.  is that good enough to keep me safe?  is there such a thing as 'bad' resistor if the value checks good?

Blue resistor is from amazon.  the tan one is from Radio Shack

[bloxstompboxes]

1% resistors are generally less noisey than carbon and more accurate. If they are rated 1/4watt and there for pedal building, then you are fine. Thicker leads will last longer against corrosion if they are sitting for a while. Otherwise, you shouls be fine. If it measures right, it's good.

[Joe]

I've used nothing but the Radio Shack resistor sets for 20+ years, and it's the main reason I'm pissed that my local store is closed.

[JohnForeman]

I've used nothing but the Radio Shack resistor sets for 20+ years, and it's the main reason I'm pissed that my local store is closed.

were you abler to get 1/4 watt 1% at radio shack?  All ours had were the 1/4 watt 5%

[JohnForeman]

1% resistors are generally less noisey than carbon and more accurate. If they are rated 1/4watt and there for pedal building, then you are fine. Thicker leads will last longer against corrosion if they are sitting for a while. Otherwise, you shouls be fine. If it measures right, it's good.

Are the tan ones from radio shack 'carbon'?  is that what the color of the resistor represents?  I thought it was blue were 1% and tan were 5%

[bloxstompboxes]

The tan ones would be carbon and are 5% tolerance. There are two types of carbon resistors though. There Is carbon composition and carbon film. Film being the tan ones you have. Carbon comps are older and suposively have mojo. You are more than fine with what you have which is carbon and metal film.

[Joe]

were you abler to get 1/4 watt 1% at radio shack?  All ours had were the 1/4 watt 5%

They had a big pack of 5% carbon film 1/4 watt, very convenient.

[MrStab]

w/ regards to the lead thickness: you can get 1/2W resistors in 1/4-sized bodies nowadays, which have thicker legs than the plain 1/4 ones. i often use em when the regular 1/4W is out of stock from my supplier. the thickness of a given rating might vary between manufacturers, though. i could've just imagined it, but i do recall coming across some resistors with quite-flimsy leads compared to the 3 or so manufacturers i'm used to.

[PRR]

> have thinner leads

The maximum current in any small-audio project can be carried in wire thinner than a hair.

You pick the lead diameter for mechanical reasons. Will it shake to pieces on a long tour over bad roads?

This is somewhat related to "span". In the old days we ran resistor lugs on 2-inch spacing with fairly long leads. Since then fashion has changed to PCB and holes as close-together as possible, almost no lead-length. Just like framing a house, a shorter stick can be thinner.

ALL parts are made for low-profit production. Price of metals is up and the prices of our "toys" (cellfones, PCs, $49 pedals) is WAY down. Generic part leads have got thinner. (Radio Shack may be the one main place still working to 1980s specifications; and we know what happened to them.)

What can go wrong? Aside from long/thin leads vibrating to death, you can have cracked paint lets the damp in and rots the ohms out, bad contacts between carbon and end-caps, all sorts of things. Do NOT buy "cheap" resistors. Your DIY time is not worth saving a penny.

OTOH:

> Am I being too anal over my resistors?

Yes. Back in the day Mathews (ElectroHarmonix) and everybody DID scrounge the Brooklyn warehouses for the CHEAPEST parts they could score. And actually those excess or distressed parts often did work well enough to found the whole tradition you are exploring.

[duck_arse]

What can go wrong? Aside from long/thin leads vibrating to death, you can have cracked paint lets the damp in and rots the ohms out, bad contacts between carbon and end-caps, all sorts of things. Do NOT buy "cheap" resistors. Your DIY time is not worth saving a penny.

OTOH:

> Am I being too anal over my resistors?

Yes. Back in the day Mathews (ElectroHarmonix) and everybody DID scrounge the Brooklyn warehouses for the CHEAPEST parts they could score. And actually those excess or distressed parts often did work well enough to found the whole tradition you are exploring.

I recently restocked my resistors from the cheapest, and very popular hereabouts, but nameless asian parts house, I won't mention the name. their metal film resistors have "the thinner leads" (the carbon type too), flimsy is apt description. the blue laquer is so thin some of the ohms do show through, and the colour bands are only just there. (the paints do provide better colour delineation than the older, thicker leadeds, though.) sounds like the same source as amazon.

I see these resistors in many many many builds here, nobody complains they aren't good enuff to use, no-one says they won't use them again, present company expected.

it used to be resistors had brands. philips, beyschlag, roederstock (sp?), irh (ended up being the metal aggregate in concrete here), and you knew what you where getting, and could read the value. nowdays, the brand seems to be 'china'. buy The cheAp ones, if You don't like em, Don't buy those ones Again.

[edit :] not metal.

[greaser_au]

Get your pedal working. Clean the flux off.  blow a coat of clear acrylic lacquer over the whole lot. sleep easy at night - who cares about cracked paint or thin leads?  the lacquer is VERY forgiving...

david

[Mark Hammer]

1) Thin leads are easier to wrap around other leads, if you are perfing a circuit (which is about half of what I do).

2) Thin leads can be awkwardly smaller than the holes drilled/punched in a PCB such that one has to rely more on solder to form a "web" between the pad and lead.  Makes for ugly, and slightly less reliable joints.

3) 1/8w resistors are generally fine for the majority of circuits and applications within circuits.  You probably don't want to use them for a Zobel network on a 1W mini-amp (the RC pair on the power chip output), or a series resistance off the power supply to limit current to an extensive circuit, but apart from that, they're usually okay.

4) Resistors will generally be far more precise, and closer to spec, than capacitors.  Wasted effort being meticulous, but always helpful to measure things just to be able to know why you're hearing what you're hearing.

[overdriver999]

Speaking of resistors, has anyone used before or had good luck with the "micro" 1/4 watt carbon ones??,I scored some on the bay a while back and have been reluctant to use them...they are 5℅tolerence but just physically smaller than normal ones..I feel they would take less space on the board and I really wanna use them..also is it ok to mix metal and carbon ones in the same build or is this frowned upon?..thanx..any input would be helpful.

[Mark Hammer]

Metal film can make a difference in noise level at some points of a circuti, but not at every conceivable point.  So mixing is perfectly fine.

Let's say you were making a phaser.  If you had metal film for the audio path, use 'em, and if you use carbon for the LFO, no big whoop, since no audio is passing through that part of the circuit.

[MrStab]

i just did an experiment which kinda relates to this, to see if excessive bending of resistor leads has any bearing on resistance. the answer seems to be: no. not to one decimal place, at least. even close to the point of snapping, the resistance read 508.1 ohms throughout. guess it makes sense as there's still contact going on, but it laid my curiosity to rest.

[nickbungus]

I wish my wife would be a bit more anal.

Sorry, that's all I've got to contribute.

[Rob Strand]

everybody DID scrounge the Brooklyn warehouses for the CHEAPEST parts they could score.

Are those warehouses still around in the US?

A friend of mine told me about them years ago.  He said it was mind-boggling, like parts from floor to ceiling throughout a massive warehouse.

[cloudscapes]

I've been using 1/8 watt resistors for years, they have smaller leads than your thinner one, no problems here. I believe zvex also uses them.

[duck_arse]

overdriver - those so called 1/8W resistors - do yourself a (perf or vero) layout w/ 1/4W, as small as you can, or in a limited space. then redo it with 1/8W's. the difference will astound you.

[overdriver999]

The ones I have are all 1/4 watt..there just physically smaller ..there not 1/8 watters...I haven't seen them used in any builds that I know of though.