The makers of OSHChip are now producing the IC pins on their own for you to use in projects where square header pins just aren’t a good solution. The larger header pins can damage breadboard sockets, but Flip-Pins are the same size as traditional IC pins.

We’re stocking these elegant parts in packs of 10 of each of the available sizes: 8-pin, 14-pin, and 20-pin strips.

They come packaged in a carrier strip for ease of soldering into your PCB.

S.W. wrote in:

I just wanted to let you know that I am using your XL741 kit in my Electronics 2 class lab. It is a high quality kit and I thank you for putting it together. We build the 741 in stages, make measurements, adjust offsets, etc. It is a great vehicle to teach the analog building blocks. A student of mine (now graduated) and I wrote four lab exercises for it and they are being used now for the second time. We also just got to share them with several EE teachers who were also very enthusiastic about the idea.

We love to hear about how our kits get used!

Ken Shirriff has posted a teardown of the beloved 555 timer IC. He sawed the top of a metal can packaged 555 to expose the die underneath.

On top of the silicon, a thin layer of metal connects different parts of the chip. … Under the metal, a thin, glassy silicon dioxide layer provides insulation between the metal and the silicon, except where contact holes in the silicon dioxide allow the metal to connect to the silicon. At the edge of the chip, thin wires connect the metal pads to the chip’s external pins.

He goes on to explain how it works and its cultural significance. He even mentions our discrete 555 and 555 footstool in the footnotes.