Smart Coaster Informs You When Your Drink Is Ready

December 4, 2015 by James Hobson 4 Comments

How many times have you made a cup of coffee or tea and it’s been too hot to drink, and then by the time you get to it, it’s become too cold? While very much a #firstworldproblem, [ToniTheAxe] decided to fix it — and enter a contest at the same time. He calls it the µCoaster, and essentially, it is a temperature sensing alarm clock.

The coaster uses a TMP006 infrared temperature sensor which measures the temperature of whatever you place on the coaster indirectly. It also doesn’t use much power. He designed the PCBs around this and created a very nice looking coaster that’s powered off of a button cell battery — he thinks it’ll last for around 6 months with daily usage — though that depends on how bad your caffeine addiction is.

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Hand Soldering BGA Parts Should Be A Circus Act

November 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

Okay, we think it’s questionable when people say they have no problem soldering QFN packages, but BGA? Granted this chip has far fewer balls on it than many, but it’s still quite impressive that [Xevel] was able to solder this BGA breakout by hand.

The chip you see above is a TMP006 infrared temperature sensor from TI. [Xevel] picked up the part but didn’t want to break the bank when prototyping by buying a proper PCB to host it. There are only eight conductors on it, arranged in a grid with 0.5mm pitch. That didn’t seem to scare him off, as the video after the break shows him connecting each to a conductor on a hunk of stripboard.

[Xevel] mentions that this is a dead-bug style project. Usually you glue the part upside down when using that technique, but it needs line of sight to get an accurate temperature reading so he first cut a hole in the substrate. We’d bet he’s using wire-wrapping wire to make the connections. It’s a very fine solid core wire which is perfect for this kind of work.

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