Reddit:Electronics

Just finished installing the new desk for electronics. I used to both study and do my electronics on the white desk but it would take too long to move all of my electronics every time that I wanted to study and reversed. So I just got this cheap ikea desk for electronics and the white desk is for studying strictly. I still have many ideas to improve it, starting with a rotating chair for convenience and a whiteboard on the wall which is already waiting for me to mount it. If you have any tips or criticisms feel free to share

Hey everyone! Hope the UK timezone rule for the WBW still holds true haha.

Almost exactly three years back I posted my beginner hobbyist bench on the sub and got a ton of kind and helpful feedback from y'all.

This new album is a present-day update three years later, after many changes and acquisitions during and for my projects. Overall I learned a ton about what I actually use the most and tried to make it all zero nuisance to get to. If it takes too many steps to get out or get ready it's no good.

Some of your predictions back then also came true!

• I did lob a 3D printer onto that side table and got into CAD and printing in a major way, which I now use in a lot of projects for case parts, mechanical bits, etc. I wound up building a few robots out of a mix of alu extrusion beams and 3D-printed parts. This is why you see a lot more tools now dedicated to mechanics - measuring, fastening, glueing, cutting, deburring, etc. - to complement the electronics toolset.

• I ended up getting a low-end benchtop meter after I got tired of getting out and throwing around my $20 handheld. Much happier with a permanent fixture.

• Dremel (well, Proxxon) on a steel cable retractor, permanently plugged in. Actually best idea ever! My circumstances don't really allow for a ton of dust and dirt creation, but for a quick cut or a grind/polish this is so convenient to grab down, and managable.

• I got my hands on two airline galley trolleys with pull-out tables. In my limited space this is perfect for additional on-demand benchtop space, and it's where I much of my growing electronics stock and some simple hardware.

• Shoutout to that Omnifixo. The hype for once is true. I've never been happier soldering and use it daily.

It's of course hardly ever this presentable. I just had some time off work and did a big tidying pass that reminded me of the older beauty shots.

My first time designing a microcontroller board. I wanted to look into getting it assembled by overseas manufacturers but they wanted to charge me over $100 and take over a month to assemble and I said nah I’ll do it myself.

I got a convection toaster oven off of facebook marketplace for like $10 and drilled a small hole in the back for a thermocouple which is connected to an ESP32 dev board.

I didn’t create a controller which is something I might do eventually but for the time being I had to manually adjust the oven temperature to try and match the reflow curve as best as I could.

You can see in the third picture the red line is the expected reflow curve from the solder paste datasheet and the blue line was the real time temperature readings. I was using that graph in real time to make my adjustments.

Placing all the components took me about an hour and I had practiced following the reflow curve twice lol but the end result was a really nice looking PCB!

Not only that, but my PC was able to detect the board as a USB DFU device when I pressed the boot switch while plugging the cable into the board!

All in all very happy with how this turned out and I think I did pretty well for my first time doing something like this!

TL;DR Reflowed a board for the first time using a convection toaster oven that I manually controlled and everything worked out :)

First 2 pictures are corner to corner and last is just bent in half. Found on ali.

now granted falstad probably isn't the best sim around, but for a free one its really easy to use and intuitive. I am shopping around for good sims though so if yall have any suggestions on better sims that match falsteds simulation im open ears.

When you're prototyping but the SOIC package IC you ordered is in actuality apparently a "wide body SOIC"

Got to get creative fitting it onto a SOIC-2-DIP converter! If it works, it works!

Ayo guys this is follow up on my post 10 days ago about changing the micro usb port on third party controller so I finally got thr tp4056 and did lots of soldering and sanding t the shell of the controller but couldn't tget it to stay inside so it's gonna be external as i use it only once in a while😅

Amazing how you can have spare parts sit in draws for 25 years untouched. I'm a fan of AMD so I was excited to find two of these are from them. I'm wishing I had a better microscope to de-cap and view the die. I'll have to figure out how to see if Evil Monkeyz Designz is interested in any of these for a de-capping.

Parts Shown Above:

I mean atleast it didn't blow up... I really should've gotten a pcb...

I need a switch that can handle some power and don't have the patiance to wait for it from shipping, so what do we do? We take out the key ignition with bonus volt meter that's ment for escooter to be able to start it and shut it off with a key.

Recapping an Apple IIe and the size difference blew me away.

Figured someone might enjoy this 🤷🏻‍♀️

Fo