Populate SMD boads using a toothpick and tweezers

cnlohr-hand-applied-solder-paste

Here's a demonstration which proves you don't really need special tools to populate a surface mount PCB. We've seen this board before, it's the glass PCB server which [Cnlohr] developed and demonstrated by connecting the real world to Minecraft. It's a tiny board and we were happy to have the chance to see his method for populating the parts before reflow soldering. In the video after the break … [Read more...]

AVR Minecraft server lets you toggle pins from the virtual world

minecraft-server-toggles-AVR-pins

Wanting to test his skills by building a webserver [Cnlohr] decided to also code a Minecraft server which allows him to toggle pins from inside the game. The rows of switches seen above give him direct access to the direction register and I/O pins of one port of the ATmega328. The server hardware is shown in the image above. It's hard to tell just from that image, but it's actually a glass … [Read more...]

Glass PCBs

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Our friend [Jeri] tipped us off about this cool video on youtube where the author makes his own “transparent” PCB’s using some nontraditional materials. One ounce copper foil is found online along with some clear glass microscope slides, from there it is just a matter of cementing the foil onto the glass slides with some thin UV curing glue. Once the 2 parts are mated the entire thing is … [Read more...]