Tesla Truck, a mobile-maker space for the masses, is having a indiegogo campaign to help them equip a hands-on classes and workshops, where students, teachers, and makers can teach, learn, create, and innovate: Whether you’re a school that wants a semester long, hands-on STEM program or an aspiring maker who wants access to workshops and […]
Category Archives: skills
Dirty Circuits PCB routing for open hardware designs
At Dangerous Prototypes we have a team of amazing PCB designers. We crank out a lot of boards publicly and privately, but even we can’t keep these hungry routing addicts busy all the time. Now we’re lending our routing skills to you for your open hardware project through a new site: Dirty Circuits. If […]
Atmel Tech on Tour: Bringing hands-on technology training to you
Xykon writes to let us know about the new Atmel Tech on Tour events: During this hands-on training, you will learn how to lower the power of your system designs using Atmel microcontrollers (MCUs) in conjunction with our wireless and touch solutions. Many of the lessons you’ll learn will be applicable to a wide variety […]
Homebrew SMT stencil
Andre shares this short article on how to make homebrew solder paste stencils from 0.1mm brass plates. Via the contact form.
The Woz’s backpack contents revealed!
Steve Wozniak (“The Woz”) has published this incredible list of the gear he carries in his travel backpack. Dozens of gadgets, cables, gizmos and accessories, only a portion of which are pictured above. Enough to fill seven bins at airport security. “You might think this is abnormal for me but, to the contrary, it’s customary.” […]
MMA7455L soldering explained
In our previous Workshop Video we mentioned we asked Pietja to solder up those pesky MMA7455L accelerometers. Here is how he got around to doing it. Check out the pics and his instructions below. Ian asked me to solder some MMA7455L on the USB POV Toy boards. So when I got them the first thing […]
MIT’s 6.002x Circuits & Electronics free online course
MITx is organizing a free online Circuits and Electronics (6.002x) course. The course started 2 days ago (5th of March) and will run until June. Upon completion you’ll receive an electronic MITx certificate of accomplishment. The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent […]
Workshop Video #10: BGA revisited
In an earlier Workshop Video we challenged Sjaak to solder a TMP006 non-contact temperature sensor in a BGA package. We lacked the skills to make it happen, but this week DP engineer Jer shows how he successfully soldered 2 of 4 breakout boards. Jer doesn’t hold the the chip in place with kapton tape like […]
Yet another SMD soldering video tutorial
Here’s another SMD soldering video tutorial. It features the use of 4 different flux types: pen, liquid, gel, and syringe. The video starts with soldering a 0603 chip resistor and moves up to a 208pin 0.5mm pitch QFP IC. Via the comments.
28C3: Hack the planet with Code Hero and Makerhoods
In this rapid fire lightning talk from the 28C3 Chaos Communication Congress held recently in Berlin, Alex Peake highlights the learning initiative known as Code Hero. “Code Hero, a game that teaches you how to make games so you can make games that teach everything else to make all knowledge playable.” (Well, that clears everything […]
Workshop video #01: Sjaak solders a QFN chip, attempts the BGA challenge
We took our cameras on the road and visited Sjaak’s workshop this week. He showed us how he solders QFN chips with a bit of hot air and normal drag-soldering. We also surprised him with a challenge to solder a tiny BGA chip, see how it turns out. Here’s some links mentioned in the video: […]
Soldering Is Easy comic book
Here’s a cool resource for teaching soldering basics to anyone. Mitch Altman, Jeff “Mightyohm” Keyzer, and Andie Nordgren just released their “Soldering is Easy” comic book. It’s part of a book they are working on that will be published later this year. Download your own PDF copy at the MightyOhm website. Via MAKE.
Infosec: using fuzzers to find vulnerabilities
Infosec Resources has a free online tutorial, An Introduction to Fuzzing: Using fuzzers (SPIKE) to find vulnerabilities. While not directly related to microcontrollers, this resource provides a hands-on guide to using open source Linux tools to find vulnerabilities in code on a networked Windows machine. To fully participate in this demo, you’ll need two machines […]
DIY clamp helps with surface mount soldering
Hold surface mount parts in place while you solder with this ingenious improvised component clamp. Via Hack a Day.
NASA workmanship standards
NASA has standards for circuit modification. How many do you violate? We think “SMT components mounted on leads” is a great way to mod a board, but our stuff isn’t in space…
Saturday solder envy
Markus shared this photo of hand-soldered 0.4mm pitch clips from ChaN. Check out ChaN’s numerous projects and amazing soldering skills.
Understanding seven segment displays
John Park at Make has a really nice introduction to 7-segment LED displays and reverse engineering. He maps the relationship between bits in a byte and each LED segment connected to an SAA106 driver. This is a real-world introduction to the tedious art of poking at hardware to reverse engineer a circuit.
PIC USB overview
Microcontroller USB interfaces are a lot more complicated than simple serial ports. WaitingForFriday.com has an extensive overview of PIC USB, including hardware, firmware, and computer interface. The same USB PIC peripheral is used in the Infrared Toy and Open Logic Sniffer. Via Hack a Day
Choosing a substitute electronic part
Choosing substitute electronic components is a common snag for beginners. What do you do if you can’t get the exact part used in a project? Part finder posed this question about the USB IR Toy: This component is hard to find from my local store: D1, Small signal diode (DO323, BAS16HT1G, Rectifier 85V/0.2A Small Signal […]
Make's PCB etching tutorial
We enjoyed this (sponsored) segment from Make about etching circuit boards. Like Collin, we got our start etching boards we found on the web, at first with toner transfer and later UV photo masking. We didn’t know how the circuits worked, but it was still exciting to build something cool. Our current method for single-sided […]