I’m envious of all the folks who are building curve tracer test fixtures for vacuum tubes and eventually I will make one for myself. In the meantime I decided to go in the opposite direction entirely and make a Curve Tracer Fixture for testing surface mount SOT23 devices.

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I posted a few photos of the finished SOT23 Curve Tracer Fixture on the forum in an album called “SOT23 Curve Tracer Fixture”.

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The hardest part was finding an SOT23 test and burn-in socket that was reasonably priced. It also helped (but it is not necessary) that I had a customizable blank (013-073) Tek curve tracer fixture to mount it on. The burn-in socket could have been mounted on any small box.

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Three wires and three small ferrite beads are all that is inside the fixture.

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For those of you that want to make one yourself the test and burn-in socket came from WaveShare in China (sales@...). Their part number is 499-P44-10 (REV.B). The price is $27 plus $14 to mail it via USPS. I have no affiliation with the manufacturer etc. Better pictures of the socket than I can take can be seen at

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Thanks for all the information on the most common surface mount packages that members of the forum provided to me a few months ago I was able to narrow my search to SOT23 as the package most often used. What would I do without all the help I get from this forum!

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Dennis

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