code, circuits, & construction

So we tried a few experiments in toaster oven soldering this weekend, and had limited success. In the end, it was easier to do the job with a soldering iron, because our surface mount chips were fairly big. But here’s a few tutorials on others’ attempts at it:
Sparkfun has a number of good methods, using a skillet and using a toaster oven.They also have a good tutorial on solder paste stenciling.
Seattle Robotics has a nice clear tutorial on toaster oven reflow.
Thanks to Raffi Krikorian for the link.
Raffi’s notes on his experiment at ITP, on how to get the timing right for reflowing a part already soldered to the board: “we put a piece of solder in there too (on a piece of tin foil), and the instant that solder melted, i pull the board and just tapped it — the IC fell right off…”
Here’s another toaster-oven soldering example, thanks to Sasha Harris-Cronin for the link.

Technorati Tags: electronics, PCB

This program controls a stepper motor from an analog input. In testing it, I used a potentiometer, which gives a persistent value. An analog input that changes when it’s not contacted, like a SpectraSymbol linear or circular pot, wouldn’t work with this example.

Thanks to the Fall ‘05 Wednesday morning class for the early experimentation on this code.

Written in PicBasic Pro, tested on a PIC18F252

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