12 Aug
2006
12 Aug
'06
12:45 p.m.
Don wrote:
Well yeah. :-/ I'm 37 now...My eyes aren't great, but I'm fine with
corrective lenses. I'm hoping that a new video magnifier will make SMT
soldering less fatiguing for me. The binocular microscope I use now
works very well and I like it, but I still squint a lot when peering
through it. A video magnifier would allow me to look more "naturally"
at the work and reduce eye fatigue considerably.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL
Well
that's pretty much a given...there's really no other way to do
that. If you have a chip that's only available in SMT, there are
SMT<->through hole adapters that you can solder the chip to and then
plug the whole thing into a breadboard or wire-wrap socket, but aside
from that, yes, you do need a PCB.
Quick-turn PCB houses are super cheap these days, though, and good
software has been available for free for some time now.
As I've said a few times, things are *different*...trying to treat
it like "a smaller version of through-hole construction" will not work.
We'll be interested to see how your opinion changes when your
eyes get 10 year older! ;-)