Those 5V and 10V Regulators are sneaky

[ryebred]

So I was soldering together the first of 4 LOR kits I bought during the sale and I got to step 6 of 8. I looked ahead in the manual and all I had left to solder was the 5V and 10V regulators and the triacs. I looked in my box of parts and all I had left was triacs. I thought, great maybe my daughter stole my parts or knocked them on the floor or something. I searched all over and could not find them. I finally concluded that either she hid them really well or they weren't in the kit.

So, I went and opened up another kit and figured I would use the ones from there and see about getting some more from LOR. Well, after sifting through all the parts in that kit I didn't see the regulators in that package either. I thought what are the chances that two boxes are missing the same parts. So I look in the third and find the same thing.

Now I go back to the plans and really study the picture of the part to make sure I know what it looks like but in the picture, it already has the heat sink around it so it is hard to tell exactly what the part looks like.

So I skip ahead and start organizing the triacs. I count them out and I have two extra. Then it hits me. Boy do I feel stupid now. The 5V and 10V regs looks exactly like the triacs except the middle pin is not offset. They were there the whole time. And to make matters worse I later found out when I started assembling kit number 2 that there was a nice drawing of the regulators in the front of the manual.

[ryebred]

Jeff Millard wrote:

If you look carefully at the SO-220 cases when you first get the kits not only is there a difference in how the pins are offset, the regulator heat sink tabs are square. Unlike the Triac cases which are trimmed off in both corners.

Yeah, once you know that, it is a piece of cake to pick them out. They will never get lost in the triacs anymore for me. But this was my first kit ever and not being very familiar with electronics, those two little details slipped by me and I saw a box full of triacs instead.

The good news is I fully tested the board last night and everything worked great. I am happy with how my soldering turned out as well, especially since I have not soldered in 20 years and then only had limited experience with it back then.