Gertboard - The Element14 strikes back

Hello All!

Count me in on the Gert Board. I've purchased one this morning and I've downloaded the comicbook that has the solder lessons. I'm going to give it a go. Sorry to sound so basic - but I find all of the info, projects, lessons, questions and products a blast.

Best,

Peg

Good luck Peg. Hope you have great fun.

OK im Sold-ered. I always believed I am a terrible wielder of the soldering iron. But I have never really given myself a fair test. A few emergency repairs with big blobs of solder is all I have achieved until now. I have done many Arduino projects but always managed to find a way to connect stuff with non perm. connectors,adapters, couplers whatever just to avoid the dreaded iron.

I would like a Gertboard and even though Steve Read kindly offered his services I have decided to bite the bullet and go Hands Soloder.

I have a good iron and a couple of Maplin bot kits I bought about a year ago (EOL 99p each), I shall tackle those first as a trial. They have a couple of motors a pic socket and a few transistors and resistors etc. If either of them works after my efforts I will order a Gertboard and go for it.

So wish me luck. I type this with 10 unburnt hand digits at this time and these hands were born when WW2 rationing was still on. So I am quite fond of them.

Who knows maybe I'll surprise myself and be a solder Da Vinci. haha. Night all.

I just want to congratulate you Ray on taking a very methodical and sensible approach to the problem, preparing yourself before diving in.  That's the basis on which effective engineering rests.  Good days ahead for you.

Well done.

Thanks Steve. Yes I have a set of those help hands, and a set of jewlers magnifer lens for my glasses. The hands hold the work great its me trying to keep the tip on the joint thats the problem. Still I know a soft rest or something will help. I'll keep at it.

Ray

Thanks Drew. I am persistant if not resistant.

Ray

Thanks Morgaine. Kind words indeed. But to be honest my good days are mainly behind me. I spent a lifetime working with chemistry and computers and making them react safely with each other. I am retired now and decided that hobby electroncics will be my way to keep brain and body nimbleish. I've had a lot of fun with Arduino over the last couple of years and am loving the Pi. So on to the next project, and the next.....

Ray

Hi Ray.  I have been following this discussion and feel that the following may be of some help to you.

In a late eighties I toured the UK with the DTI mobile automated Electronics Factory demonstrating  surface mount techniques and all the other advanced manufacturing in electronics techniques coming to the forefront at that time.  After this I spent some time at the Highbury college in Portsmouth running the surface mount technology workshop.  At that time IBM had a local factory, and it was trying to cross train all its employees and their idea was that if everyone was flexible, then the factory would become more efficient. The factory made hard disk drives and there was a small surface mount board incorporated in that device. The idea was that they could take a storeman or perhaps a fork truck driver and get them to assemble surface mount boards the same way that the young female operators did.  So, without asking me if I thought it was feasible - IBM was always right -  they commissioned me to run a series of workshops to do the training. This just really did not work because the men not only found it very difficult to hold the tools and components steady, but also to see what was going on without powerful magnifiers.  The young females found it easy and produced high quality work. Needless to say, the experiment was abandoned after a short time.

So, everything you have said in this discussion is validated by my experiences. However, I feel sure that the posts I make over the coming weeks will give you hope and enable you to complete a satisfactory kit build. Must stop now as I have run out of time. For the record, I was born before the WW2 rationing started, but still expect to complete a Gertboard kit build which will work first time.

Very interesting post, cityswift, and inspiring too.

Thanks for that Cityswift and I look forward to your additional posts. Us old dogs still got a few tricks in us eh?

Ray

About making soldering easier- I recently realized that one reason it's easier to solder at work than at home (apart from the nice binocular microscope) is that we have Metcal MX-500P-11 soldering irons. With that unit, the tip is only 4 cm away from the hand grip, making precision work easier.  I could not spend $500 for my own Metcal, so at home I have a cheap Radio Shack iron with a tip about 8 cm away from the grip, so it is 2x as long. That means any deviation in the angle of my hand is multiplied 2x at the tip relative to the Metcal, and that makes a real difference with accuracy.

Is there any affordable iron with a short hand grip - tip distance? Or is that not practical with a simple, conventional iron (the Metcal uses RF heating right at the tip, so there is no separate heating cartridge to design around).

jbeale wrote:

 

we have Metcal MX-500P-11 soldering irons. With that unit, the tip is only 4 cm away from the hand grip, making precision work easier.

That is an excellent observation.

PS. I have a very old Bausch & Lomb 20X binocular microscope fixed to my worktable, and when I set its 0.7-3.0 zoom to the lowest magnification I get 14X and am able to solder tiny features reasonably effectively.  Good hand control is really difficult though, so your point rings a strong bell.  I'll be looking out for shorter soldering irons.  A pic here for background:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morgaines/6172845302/in/set-72157627604533547

Morgaine.

Thanks jbeale and Morgaine. Excellent tips (pun intended) about shorter irons  Mine is about 3 or inches from holding point to tip, Perhaps a shorter iron would help steady my wobbles or I need some oven gloves.

Ray

Thanks jbeale and Morgaine. Excellent tips (pun intended) about shorter irons  Mine is about 3 or inches from holding point to tip, Perhaps a shorter iron would help steady my wobbles or I need some oven gloves.

Ray