16 Feb
2010
16 Feb
'10
7:43 p.m.
On 2/15/2010 7:30 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I am missing something here. The purpose of a microcontroller is to
control something. You have to build an interface between the
microcontroller and whatever it is goign to control. And like it or not,
building that interface is going to involve some soldering.
I can see the point of evaluation boards to see if the
microocontroller/FPGA/whatever is going to be useful (although it's often
a lot cheaper and more educational just to buy the chips and solder up an
evaluation board that has the features you need).
I don't see this problem with soldering. Soft soldering is not difficult.
I must have taught dozens of people to solder over the years, and every
single one of them could solder well enough to use a microcontroller.
It's a skil ltaht takes an afternoon at most to learn. Since most
electronic components are joined by soldered conneections, I regard it as
a fundamental skill needed to do amateur electronics. Period.
-tony
With reference to Arudinos, someone wrote:
I'm glad I'm not the only one who notes that.
On the other hand, this comes from a guy who sells little interfaces
that allow one to use SD cards on a 20+ year old machine. My theory is
that people are averse to solder nowadays, and these boards mitigate the
need to care about the construction aspect. They're ready-made boards that aren't in
an application specific
chassis. :
I never could see the point to those. It's much easier just build up
your device using the bare chip. If one of the big AVRs, such as one
of the XMegas, it might make some sense in helping to deal with
handling an SMT package, sort of the way the ARM stamps do.
--Chuck