Robust resistors, are you for or against?

[chromesphere]

Hey guys, I just finished adding a massive lot of resistors to my store and I started to wonder what you all thought about resistors.  This comes up every now and then and I see some people say "use whatever" and others say "strong leads are better".  Or more experienced builders actually persuading new builders not to bother with say xicons and just use whatever!? Personally I'm going with 'for' strong leads / robust construction and as such that's the type that I'm selling on the store (the "general use" type on the store).  The reasons for me personally to want to spend more on a resistor, is to get these benefits:

- Color code is easier to read
- Colors are easier to differentiate (brown black red for example), with this particular brand.
- Leads are stronger. 

Sure, you cut the leads off so who cares?  Well a few reasons I like stronger leads are for when I need one offboard (and tag/turret/eyelet board etc), soldering and de-soldering (less gap between the pad and the lead) and breadboarding.  Breadboarding with tayda resistors is a lot of fun! Blowtorching my fingernails off is a lot of fun!

So that's my pitch for quality / strong leaded resistors and its probably a minority but hey, that sums up my life. 
What's your opinion?
Paul

[Leevibe]

I like beefy leads. They look and feel like quality for starters. It's probably nit picky but I think there's a bit better mechanical connection when there is more lead diameter to contact through hole plating. I also trust them more for flying leads on LEDs. I love the resistors I get for smallbear. Are those Xicons?

[chromesphere]

I like xicons, they are a good size.  Mine are probably...well, VERY SLIGHTLY thicker then xicons.  Anything around that size is good.  I had a bag of 100 x 100k xicons in my parts box, the rest where flimsies from tayda.  every time I'd get a 10k xicon out I would be like "oh yeah baby!".  Sad but true story. So I decided its time to move on from these crappy resistors.  A recent agonising breadboard experience with Tayda resistors was the last straw.

[alanp]

I prefer "flimsy" resistors. Robust ones are more work to deal with, plus the one time I did get some (emergency, I-only-need-these to finish one of the early Doppelganger 1.4s), I couldn't get the damn things to sit flat on the board, so they stuck up, slightly, like a 1/4W resistor in a 1/8W footprint.

Plus it's not like you're going to tie a rope to them and attach a tyre at the other end for the kids to swing on.

[muddyfox]

I too prefer flimsy ones. While snipoffs from the thicker ones do come handy (mostly as jumpers on vero builds), I'm now almost exclusively using fabbed boards so that's a non-issue anymore. For the few veros I build, I can always snip off some 1n4001 leads.
Flimsy ones are a godsend when wiring up the led as you can easily bend it everywhichway, without it pulling on the wire or trying to unglue the led if I'm not using a socket.
I agree about the "oh yeah" sentiment as I have that too, but as soon as I try actually using them I start wishing they weren't all that butch. 

[chromesphere]

Interesting points guys.  I've never had an issue fitting a 'robust' 1/4w resistor into a pcb before. I'm sure there are oversized 'robust' 1/4w resistors out there though.

I find stronger resistors easier to use on led's then flimsy.  They tend to snap easier, even though you would think it would be the other way around.

The biggest problem with flimsy for me is breadboard.  They are useless and don't fit the board sockets tightly.

[Vallhagen]

What's your opinion?
Paul

I simply agree with you all the way. I have a bunch of cheap resistors with thin legs for backup and experimenting (good to have for sure when i miss a value, and they definately do the job), but for the final thing i prefer the real thick leg thing. I have no clue what brand i use though, but the ones Banzaimusic carries are good stuff.

Another thing: When i play with the breadboard i do prefer brown 5% resistors, because I find them easier to read (three rings are simpler than four), and readability are of certain importance during experiments

[muddyfox]

I find stronger resistors easier to use on led's then flimsy.  They tend to snap easier, even though you would think it would be the other way around.

Interesting. I've never ever had a clr resistor break on me. Or any resistor for that matter. I guess that's why I never considered flimsy ones to be a problem at all.

The biggest problem with flimsy for me is breadboard.  They are useless and don't fit the board sockets tightly.

This one I do agree on. Flimsy ones are impossible to breadboard with. But as I have my plate full with all the fabbed projects floating around here, the good ole breadboard hasn't seen the light of day in years. 

[culturejam]

I prefer the beefy leads. They bend more precisely, the stay put when bent, and they are generally easier for me to insert in a board because they don't move at all. The flimsy ones work the same electronically, but I find my builds are not nearly as neat because they move around in the through-holes while I'm flipping the board over to solder.

And, usually the thinner leads are attached to cheap resistors, which usually look like crap (finish-wise). Has no effect on sound, of course.

A further concern is that there have been cheap metal film resistors sold that are actually carbon film painted blue with the added color band. Again, not that it makes much difference in sound, but if I want carbon film I'll buy them.

[jkokura]

It doesn't make a difference to me at all. I use both, and both work just fine.

What's more important to me is value tolerance and performance. I've never met a Metal Film I didn't like.

Jacob

[pickdropper]

Yeah , I prefer the beefy resistors as well.  The thin lead ones function just fine, but the better ones aren't very expensive so I get those.

To Forrest's point, I have measured some the cheap ones and some clearly aren't within the 1% rating.  I have no idea if they are painted carbon films or just out of spec metal films.

[peAk]

Sorry if this is a little OT, but since we are talking about resistors, how do you guys store your resistors? I don't want to dedicate a 100+ small pull shelves for all the values and right now I have them in small, labeled ziplocks that I have to shift through which is a PITA.

Anybody have any great solutions?

[GermanCdn]

I fall firmly into the camp of "It doesn't matter".  I use the thinner ones regularly without issue.  I measure every single resistor that I put into circuit (and cap above 1 nF, as my DMM has an inherent capacitance of 140 pF which skews all readings less than that), and the largest variance I've ever found was 1.8%, and that wasn't in a batch I bought from Tayda, it was in a batch of 1000 10k resistors I bought for something like $0.004 per resistor.  I've only had one bag of resistors test unacceptably out of spec from Tayda, and that was a bunch of carbon film 220k which all tested consistently at 200k, which would lead me to believe they were probably mislabelled at the factory label, as the colour code indicated 220k.

[jkokura]

Sorry if this is a little OT, but since we are talking about resistors, how do you guys store your resistors? I don't want to dedicate a 100+ small pull shelves for all the values and right now I have them in small, labeled ziplocks that I have to shift through which is a PITA.

Anybody have any great solutions?

Use envelopes and a box. You can easily organize them this way, and where the baggies are flimsy and will not always stand up to the abuse, using paper envelopes is usually more durable to this sort of use. You can stand them on end, and use a marker to clearly indicate the values inside each envelope.

Jacob

[peAk]

Sorry if this is a little OT, but since we are talking about resistors, how do you guys store your resistors? I don't want to dedicate a 100+ small pull shelves for all the values and right now I have them in small, labeled ziplocks that I have to shift through which is a PITA.

Anybody have any great solutions?

Use envelopes and a box. You can easily organize them this way, and where the baggies are flimsy and will not always stand up to the abuse, using paper envelopes is usually more durable to this sort of use. You can stand them on end, and use a marker to clearly indicate the values inside each envelope.

Jacob

Sounds good. The plastic ziplock is a PITA to pull resistors out of. Maybe the paper envelope will fix this issue.

Thanks

back on topic, I prefer the beefier leads but it's not a big deal either way for me.