I started looking for vendors for the ZTX851 matched pair's acorn nut since I had exhausted Home Depot's supply and they're over $1 each.
The nut is almost as expensive as the two transistors inside it.
There's a local Fastenol on the other side of the airport from me so they were my first choice.
As I shopped Fastenol's website I discovered aluminum acorn nuts.
https://www.fastenal.com/products/details/0176228
Then it occurred to me: Chrome-plated stainless steel look very cool but when compared to aluminum stainless sucks at thermal conductivity.
The 2011-T3 aluminum nuts have about 10X the thermal conductivity of steel or stainless steel.
Even more beautiful is that they're about half the cost and in stock.
I may wind up being in the low noise matched transistor pair business.
Matching and gluing these things is kinda fun.
Speaking of matching transistors Textool's 14 pin ZIF socket has a divider to accept, in addition to 14 pin devices, 8 pin and 6 pin parts such as dual op amps and opto-isolators.
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?mpa ... 0602J&v=19
Stray contact resistance in the emitter terminals can give false Vbe readings.
I've been using Protoboard contacts, which I've cleaned, and have considered machined pin IC sockets as test sockets which would likely were out quickly.
Textool's ZIF socket seems much better and the 6 pin section would be great for the transistors.
![Image](https://media.digikey.com/photos/3M%20Photos/214-3339-00-0602J.jpg)