23 Jun
2010
23 Jun
'10
10:35 a.m.
[1] Heathkit
prodcued an education kit to teach SMD soldering. You ended
up making a flashing light or something uisng SMD components. Needless to
say that one did come with an unpolulated PCB
I built that kit, c. 1990. There were two PCBs - the one I remember
had a line of SOT-23 LEDs and an LM339 in an SO package. There were a couple of machined pin socket pins for inputs - you
could insert an
electret microphone to turn the board into an audio level display, or
replace the microphone with an LDR to display light levels. The
louder or brighter the room, the taller the line of lit LEDs. The
only through-hole parts were the input pins and the CR2032 holder.
Everything was SO and SOT-23 and 1206 sized.
At the time I did it, it was challenging to me, but at least it worked
the first time. Since then, with practice, 1206 and SO stuff is old
hat, and I work down to 0.5mm QFPs and 805s with no difficulty
(IOB6120, Makerbot Sanguino and Arduino boards, Makerbot wristwatch,
stepper controllers, etc).
A lot of it comes down to practice (as with most things :-)).
Even though I'm over 40, I still have steady hands and good close-in
vision. I wouldn't hesitate to do most SMT short of BGAs. I'm
Yes, I don't hacve the tools to do BGAs (yet!).
I think it would be reasoanble for the advert/webpage for a kit to say
what was involved -- if there was any SMD work (if so, what sort of
components were invovlved), if there were BGAs, etc. And possibly to
prvided several 'levels' of kit -- some of the manufactuerers of model
steam enginers over here supply their porducts in 3 grades -- assembled
and ready to run; fully machined -- you have to clean up parts with hand
tools (files, etc) and put it all toguether ; or castings and metal stock
where you have to use a lathe, etc to make parts.
keeping my eyes out for a 20X-25X binocular dissection
microscope for
Now that would be fun. I found a nice little stereoscopic magnifier (*15 I
think) for \pounds 5.00 in a charity shop a year ago -- yes I did buy it.
And I was given a good binocualr eyepice but one objective (so not
stereo) microscope some years ago. I didn't need either, but I like nice
toys :-)
the day when I can't see so well. Until then,
I'll just keep at it
like I have been. It may be inexpensive to get "kits" pre-soldered
overseas, but I don't mind the work, and I've seen more than a few
hobby-level products with low yields due to poor construction. If I
build it myself, I know it's good.
Even if I say so myself, I agree with you. If I've soldered a connection,
I know it's done properly. And the number of bad conenctions I've seen in
new stuff recently is amazing.
-tony