Bootcamp Soldering lesson¶
Soldering techniques.¶
Before beginning Fab academy, I started out by practicing different methods of soldering to hone my skills. I used a Satsha Kit. This board allowed me to create my own Arduino by using through-hole soldering methods. I had to create a parts list by finding the Bill of Materials for the kit. Once having all the materials I followed the diagram to see where on the board these parts would be placed. I used flux and surface mount soldering techniques to attach numerous resistors as well as capacitors. I was especially challenged when soldering the pins of the micro-controller as the pins were very close together and bridges were easy to form. I had to use a electronic magnifying glass and solder wick to remove the bridges. Once finishing these components, I combined them with through-hole techniques to place the headers. Once the headers had been attached I concluded the board by using a multimeter and checking if there was current between each of my components. After checking that everything was working, I uploaded the Arduino as ISP code to my board. Once that had uploaded I burned the bootloader from Arduino allowing it to function as a regular Arduino.
Bootcamp Solder lesson¶
In this video I learned about how to solder as efficiently as possible. I learned tips including proper temperature and how to clean the iron for maximum longevity of effective soldering. The point made about the different liquids and how they would affect the life of the tips was very interesting to me as previously I had only used the brass pit to clean my soldering iron. I was fascinated by the details about reflow soldering. I had never heard of the concept before. I learned that it is the placement of a solder putty that is heated by either a heat gun or an oven to precisely attach surface mount components for commercial goods. Other than that their werre a lot of good tips that I have been taught in various engineering classes such as the various safety precautions or soldering the inside of a board first then moving outward. I also learned about what makes up good solder like the led vs no led and diameter and what makes up good quality solder and how to distinguish it from the poor quality. Finally, I learned about the flux within the solder even though I already learned about it in electrical engineering it was a nice refresher seeing how it helped to aid soldering components.
