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Have any helpful maker tips? Send them my way!

danzima

Hello RoadTest!

I'm working with our community team on a second volume of our Essential Tips for Makers eBook series (you can see the original here). Our fearless RoadTest leader suggested that I reach out to our wonderful group here and see if anyone might have some useful tips they've picked up that they'd be willing to contribute.

 

We'll be printing this eBook for distribution at Electronica 2018, and of course it'll live on in perpetuity on the community as well. If you have any ideas you'd like to share, please leave them in this thread! Also feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions.

 

Thanks everyone!

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  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    A bit of a digression, but still related. I was quite impressed with this chart recently:

    image

    It is a 150 euro soldering iron.. not as fast recovery as say the high-end irons at many times the cost, but it's still only maybe 1.5-2 times the recovery time of those, if that 'back to temperature test' chart is true. Apparently this test is repeatedly soldering on a 10mm diameter copper pad on a PCB.

     

    It looks like a nice 'advanced beginner' iron - and it comes as standard with a tip that looks suitable for SMD.

     

    The chart seemed impressive, so I did unscrew the tip to see how it is attached to the iron, and they're basically relying on a flat surface, apparently some silver alloy to increase conductivity. Based on that I don't see why it wouldn't work, provided it didn't oxidise much over time (i.e. if well screwed on). Plus it's 90W, more than my current iron.

     

    This was the iron that I won during the Bluetooth design challenge, and I'm really tempted to try it, but I didn't want to do that so that I can give it to a local school (as soon as the local councillor decides on one) - cos I'm sure the kids would prefer a totally new iron rather than a hand-me-down.

    The sketch shows how small the tip volume is, and its flat surface is the conduction area. clamped in position in the usual way.

    Basically it seemed a bit different from the usual beginners irons that rely on the shaft length for the conduction.

    image

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    in addition to this; a tip on soldering LEDs to an aluminium PCB: (from LED Road Test - Solder the LEDs - Blog 6 - Dec 28 )

    1. apply some solder to the pads, using a normal soldering iron.
    2. apply a little bit of flux.
    3. place the LED (be aware of proper polarity, the - is marked on the LED.
    4. put the PCB on a hot electric ceramic cooktop. (be aware that an induction cooktop would not work!)
    5. wait until the solder melts and the LED sinks onto the board.
    6. Ready! image

     

  • in reply to shabaz

    Shabaz,

     

    Your drawing looks a lot like the tried and true method that Weller has used with their tips (although their tips extend down into the shaft a bit).

     

    Gene