Being engaged in urgent repairs or simple inspection of circuit boards from imported manufacturers, users often come across such an interesting element as a "zero" value resistor. Anyone who at least once met with this unusual componentry probably wondered why it is needed at all. To deal with this incomprehensible radio component, let's first find out what a zero-resistance resistor is.
Is it a resistor or a jumper?
From the course of electrical engineering and electronics, it is known that an ordinary resistor refers to passive electronic elements that have a fixed or variable resistance value. For typical resistor parts, a rating variation of +/- 10 percent, for example, is the norm.
Since in this case the resistor has zero resistance, a downward change is simply impossible.
For zero resistance, a deviation of minus 10 percent would mean a negative rating. With this approach, we are faced with a complete absurdity, since such an element must have superconducting capabilities. But since the phenomena of superconductivity do not exist in nature, there can be no such resistance at all. The secret obviously lies in the fact that this detail, which looks like a jumper, was called zero resistance for some unclear reasons.
Technological tricks
After getting acquainted with foreign technical literature, it was possible to find out some features of the assembly of electronic boards. It turned out that at present, robotic systems are mainly used in in-line production (people are extremely rare in the assembly process). These innovations also explain the appearance of incomprehensible resistive elements.
The fact is that the developers of conveyor technologies have come up with a very interesting trick, presenting in the description of the process a simple jumper as a resistor with zero resistance. To do this, we had to "pack" it into a regular case of a typical resistive element and apply a black rim to it.
The advantages of the technique used
The advantages of the described method include:
- the algorithm for assembling printed circuit boards after the introduction of this technique has been significantly simplified;
- for this, the automated line needs to be programmed only once;
- production efficiency in this case, at least slightly, but increases.
Such a banal reason explains how this incomprehensible element appeared on electronic boards. If, during self-repair, it suddenly turns out that this particular part has burned out, you can, without a twinge of conscience, put an ordinary wire jumper instead of it. Exactly the same should be done when copying the imported board with its transfer to the domestic element base. On the diagrams of these devices, a simple jumper line is indicated instead of the designation of a zero-resistance resistor.