Gertboard - The Element14 strikes back

Yeah... I had the same reaction as Ray. I wonder how the law stands on needing to solder something together when it has been pre-pictured all assembled?

I've just soldered one of the capacitors back onto the Pi and that was my first attempt at it.

I'm really not happy about needing to do it to something that costs £30... Perhaps one of the other starter kits would be a better idea?

--

Mike

Yeah... I had the same reaction as Ray. I wonder how the law stands on needing to solder something together when it has been pre-pictured all assembled?

Hmm.. would be interesting..  but given it's quite clearly described as an unassembled kit for self assembly It's not like they're misleading anyone.  There must be other instances - not necessarily electronics related - where a kit is shown assembled, if for no other reason than it gives you a better idea of what you'll get when it's built.

For example, I think it would be slightly odd if you walked into IKEA and they had to have a jumbled pile of parts on display instead of the assembled wardrobe.

You haven't seen my local Ikea ! :-)

selsinork wrote:

... There must be other instances - not necessarily electronics related - where a kit is shown assembled, if for no other reason than it gives you a better idea of what you'll get when it's built.

You mean like the entire Heathkit catalog?  I loved Heathkit -- terrific assembly instructions, excellent schematics, good Theory of Operation.  By building it yourself you got a much better feel for how the product worked -- it wasn't just a throw-away black box.   I've been on the factory tour

There was a time when I would start going through withdrawal if I hadn't built a Heathkit in a while.  I think I was addicted to the rosin in the solder

Regarding Gertboard, I figure that if you don't like soldering then Gertboard will probably have limited use, since you'll have to do some soldering to interface other things to it.  Hey, at least the 25 mil pitch components are gone.  I think Gert went a little overboard with 0.1" nostalgia.  50 mil SOICs and 0805's are perfectly easy to solder, even for someone old enough to know about Heathkit.

John Beetem wrote:

 

There was a time when I would start going through withdrawal if I hadn't built a Heathkit in a while.  I think I was addicted to the rosin in the solder

Haha.  I held onto one of their old oscilloscopes out of nostalgia, can't bear to throw it away after a long and formative relationship that influenced my career direction.  I expect it still works, maybe I should fire it up.

Or shove an ARM board in there!

Morgaine.

You mean like the entire Heathkit catalog? 

Yeah, I remember them from the early 80's, although I never built one myself.  Whatever happened to them ?

I think Gert went a little overboard with 0.1" nostalgia. 

I actually think the 0.1" headers are exactly what's needed. If for no other reason than they're cheap, easily obtainable, and easy to connect a jumper wire onto.

Even 25mil stuff isn't too bad with a little practise, and down to 0603 is fine. I tend to draw the line at anything smaller than 0402 though, eyesight isn't what it used to be

For some reason there seems to be a feeling that people are scared of surface mount. I disagree with that, I find smt far easier in general. (I etch my own pcbs, so hate through hole stuff - too many holes to drill !)

You can understand using socketed IC's though as it's certain that lots of people will manage to blow things up and it's much easier to swap a socketed dip than a tssop

selsinork wrote:

 

You mean like the entire Heathkit catalog? 

Yeah, I remember them from the early 80's, although I never built one myself.  Whatever happened to them ?

Cheap Asian labor and automation happened to them.  Back in Heathkit's heyday, a 25" colour TV hand-assembled by union workers cost US$700.  The equivalent Heathkit saved you a couple hundred US$, and it had a built-in TV test generator.  But then manufacturing started to get automated and work was sent overseas, and Heathkit lost its price advantage.  It's one thing to say "I built it myself, and saved US$200" versus "I built it myself and had a lot of fun, but it cost me an extra US$200".  High-density SMT came along, and it became impractical for the general public to build things themselves.  Preparing the kit -- sticking components into paper bags and envelopes, etc., became more expensive than assembling the board with an SMT assembly robot.

Plus, employed people have a lot less leisure time than they used to in the USA.  Businesses find it's cheaper to pay a higher salary to fewer workers and work them longer hours, so you have employed people with limited leisure time and unemployed with no discretionary spending.

More later!

selsinork wrote:

I think Gert went a little overboard with 0.1" nostalgia. 

I actually think the 0.1" headers are exactly what's needed. If for no other reason than they're cheap, easily obtainable, and easy to connect a jumper wire onto.

 

Even 25mil stuff isn't too bad with a little practise, and down to 0603 is fine. I tend to draw the line at anything smaller than 0402 though, eyesight isn't what it used to be

For some reason there seems to be a feeling that people are scared of surface mount. I disagree with that, I find smt far easier in general. (I etch my own pcbs, so hate through hole stuff - too many holes to drill !)

You can understand using socketed IC's though as it's certain that lots of people will manage to blow things up and it's much easier to swap a socketed dip than a tssop

By 0.1" nostalgia I was thinking of the DIPs, not the headers.  Yes, 0.1" headers are nice, but I really wish 2 mm headers had caught on.  They're almost as robust as 0.1" headers, but only take 62% of the surface area.

I agree 0603 are fine and that 0402 are a pain.  Plus, as you go to a smaller resistor its power rating is more likely to be significant and you to have to calculate how much power each resistor will have to dissipate.  With 0603 and larger, you're much more likely to have a nice margin.

IC sockets were always the least reliable components back in the old days.  Fixing hobby computers by reinserting all ICs was commonplace.  I really prefer SOIC packages with 50 mil lead pitch.  They're easy to solder, and desoldering them is a lot easier than a DIP.  50 mil pitch is wide enough to get a PCB trace between leads -- I once used that feature to get all the signals on a (simple) PC board to route on a single layer.

EDIT: PLCCs with 50 mil pitch are nice too.  They're my favorite density package.  Sockets for those actually work quite well, because the package is pushing out hard in all directions at once.  OTOH, I wouldn't want to desolder one.

EDIT: PLCCs with 50 mil pitch are nice too.  They're my favorite density package.  Sockets for those actually work quite well, because the package is pushing out hard in all directions at once.  OTOH, I wouldn't want to desolder one.

PLCCs day has passed though, sure you can still just about get them, but little of the interesting stuff seems to be getting put in plcc anymore. I still have a box of plcc sockets, but have only ever used a handful of them.  You don't really desolder a plcc socket, unless it's a through hole version, even with hot air tools you either melt it off or just give up and cut it off with snips - either way it's destroyed in the process. You either use a new socket or just solder the chip directly onto the board. These days I prefer similar pitch tqfp - slightly easier to solder and much easier to desolder

When I started inhaling the fumes of melted solder Heatkit stuff had tubes on them and you could put things together with a 250W soldering iron.

Last piece I got from Heatkit and still have in working condition (once in a while I turn it on) is the Motorola MC6800 kit

Anyway if you want more tips about how to work with SMD components I put together a quick tutorial about how to put stuff on a board I designed for PIC MCUs

http://www.ljcv.net/pp28/pp28-tut.html

-J

Super job on both the Heathkit and the tutorial.

Bill

Super job on both the Heathkit and the tutorial.

Bill