soldering

198 Articles

NYC Soldering Championships

July 16, 2008 by 13 Comments


[Matt] let us know about the New York City Soldering Championships. They’ll be happening during the Ignite talks on July 29th at 7pm. 25 people will race head to head to assemble a fully functional electronics kit. Participants have to register in advance and are encouraged to bring their own iron. The kit hasn’t been chosen yet so people can’t practice. We hope they at least consider using a few SMD parts just to keep things interesting. Shout out if you’re planning to attend or compete!

[photo: Nick Bilton]

UPCB Makes Your Arcade Stick Universal

June 13, 2008 by No comments


The Universal PCB project lets you make any controller (specifically arcade sticks) console agnostic. A PIC microcontroller is used to translate between the button presses and the signals for the specific console you’re connected to. It uses a DB15 for the external plug. The PIC knows which console you’re plugged into based on which pins are high or low in your console specific adapter cable. The board includes a piggyback plug so you can plug in an Xbox360 controller board (like the one above) since the console requires authentication. The PIC’s firmware is conveniently upgradeable over the USB cable.

How-To: Go Green With Lead Free Solder

May 22, 2008 by 82 Comments

We covered many of [Jason Rollette]’s personal projects in the past and are happy to welcome him as our newest Hack-A-Day contributor.

The electronics industry has shifted to lead free compliance, but most hobbyists haven’t even considered the personal impact of using lead. Today’s How-To will cover what it takes to switch from tin/lead solder to completely lead free. Our previous posts Introduction to soldering and the follow-up still apply to lead free. You may have never considered switching to lead free before, but we hope to help you make an informed decision.

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Li-ion For Your Roomba

March 15, 2008 by 10 Comments


[gim] gutted some li-ion laptop batteries to replace his roomba’s battery pack. He had to pick up a li-ion charger and add a protection circuit to deal with the li-ion cells, but ended up with a new lighter pack for his roomba. If you head this way, the protection circuit is a vital component to prevent fires/explisions/etc. Looks like a great resource for robot power or even R/C projects.

How-To: Introduction To Soldering

October 26, 2007 by 54 Comments

It’s been a while since we’ve had a fresh How-To on the Hack-A-Day, and frankly we’ve missed them. To get things rolling, [Eliot] and I wanted to build a good knowledge base to help you hack your own stuff. I know that soldering won’t be new to many of our readers, but everyone has to start sometime. Our hope is simple: that this new series of How-To’s will help inspire new and experienced hackers alike.

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Pulse Soldering Iron

October 9, 2007 by 28 Comments


I’m always interested in new ways to solder. [SPman] sent in this diy pulse soldering iron. It heats up in 5 seconds on demand, then cools in about 15. The writeup is a bit terse (since it’s translated from Russian), but it would definitely be handy for larger wiring jobs. The transformer is hand wound, and an oscillation driver forms a sort of crude frequency modulation to run the MOSFETS that drive the heating elements. I’d keep it away from delicate electronics unless you’re confidant of the temperature stability. It was designed for 220V, so you’d need to modify the transformer a bit to get similar performance on a 110V circuit.