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.
Category Archives: skills
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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