[R-390] OD Demise Redux

[Perry Sandeen via R-390]

List,
 
Wrote: The world is moving towards surface mount technology.
Point to point wiring and thru the hole passive components is for us dinosaurs.
Stock up now, if you can find ODs anywhere
 
Well now, I believe it isn’t quite all that bad. And Mouse
still has a lot of OD’s left in stock. There just being slowly phased out.
 
OD’s are much higher priced that many good equivalents. Their
price-performance ratio may not justify their use in volume manufactured
equipment.
 
It’s true that some of the more exotic IC’s only come in SM
technology. But some types are easier to get and adaptor and are easier to
solder than others. But SM components aren’t applicable to our B/A units.
 
When looking for film capacitors at Mouser, the list over
300,000. Mostly name brands. 
 
They also stock a wide variety of resistors, mostly metal
film or carbon film for the small wattage sizes.
 
What are getting almost impossible to find are the ancient
carbon composition resistors that were OEM in our radio’s.
 
The market has decided that the metal film and carbon film
resistors are far superior to CC’s and they are now priced significantly lower
than CC’s. AB quit making them years ago so now only an obscure asian company
has them listed with Mouser.
 
The good side of the issue is that there are many good SS
parts for surge limiting, spike limiting and voltage regulation that weren’t
economical/available years ago.
 
IMNSHO, one should shop for tube deals on ebay. The *super
tubes* that can replace the 6DC6, 6BA6, and 6BE6 to name a few examples, can be
found for quite reasonable prices if one waits. See the Osterwald R-390A
article in ER magazine for an example. Or email me for a copy of my “almost
ultimate R-390A schematics” which show the *super tubes* Ray used as well as
annotations of commonly troublesome components as reported on this list from
many sources. 
 
Regards,
 
Perrier