Have any helpful maker tips? Send them my way!

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 rscasny 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!

Top Replies

shabaz over 7 years ago in reply to dougw

That's great for SMD IC alignment too, I do it a lot : ) It really helps with positioning them! Since you can rotate them by fractions of a degree, due to the leverability of the long tape if you see what I mean..
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gpolder over 7 years ago in reply to mcb1

I never destroyed my tips, but thanks for the tip, I will try the dish scrubber from our kitchen.
(two type of tips in the sentence above, as a non native speaker english language is still difficult to me)
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luislabmo over 7 years ago in reply to gpolder

Tecnically a wet sponge doesn't destroy tips, but makes their lifespan shorter due to oxidation also, sudden changes on the Tip's temperature (from very hot to cold when using the sponge) will cause cracks to the tip's coating in the long term, a good explanation here. I agree with others, the brass sponge is good enough and does an excellent job.

Luis
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shabaz over 7 years ago in reply to gpolder

A great benefit is it never seems to need cleaning/emptying. Since I've had the wire springy stuffy, I've never emptied it in a few years.. I don't know where the waste flux/solder/dirt off the iron falls.. probably falls through to the bottom of the pot eventually, but if I don't look there, the problem doesn't exist : )
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Jan Cumps over 7 years ago in reply to jc2048

jc2048 wrote:

One thing to watch with old books is that sometimes the circuits were redrawn by graphic designers from scrappy, hand-drawn originals. A classic mistake was adding additional dots where there shouldn't be joints. There's a nice example of that in the particular schematic you reproduce.
When I learned circuit drawing at school, we were never allowed to make a cross a join. we always had to draw three leg straight angle joins. No dots needed and no confusion. Even not after multiple photocopies from previous copies.
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shabaz over 7 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

Not like this then : )

https://xkcd.com/730/
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luislabmo over 7 years ago in reply to shabaz

I saw that diagram couple of years ago (when I was starting with electronics), the part that made me laugh the most was "Arduino, just for blog credits"
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Jan Cumps over 7 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

If you print and scan the following drawing two times (or photocopy them with an early 80s copier ), you'll have issues knowing what's connected and what not.
The cross-hairs will all seem to have a dot after a few copies

source: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/26610/dual-polarity-vs-dual-rail-power-supply?noredirect=1&lq=1
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Jan Cumps over 7 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

I double checked my own schematic here on element14 to see if I am consequent myself.
Pfew, yes:
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Jan Cumps over 7 years ago

Maker tip:
Switch to SMD components. Just don't use the smaller footprints. 1206 for passives and SOIC for ICs is doable by hand.
Your stock becomes smaller. Components fit in an envelope in a binder. PCBs are smaller, hence cheaper.
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