To buy a house to fit all this stuff in.
Definitely happy with how it works now I've added it to my online home automation remote.
How much do you plan to get working through it?
I did wonder if it was possible to have out bedroom led strip voice activated.
When you say nothing was soldered, you just mean the header pins, right?
Yeah I wish I knew what was causing it! When I get home and sit down it's game over. I can't keep my eyes open! I was wondering if it had something to do with my new job. I love it and I'm putting a lot of time and energy into it, and with all the things I'm trying to learn I thought maybe it was wearing me down.
Yeah, just pin headers. Photos showed serial pins pre-soldered
Not done much soldering on electronic bits. Actually nothing more than soldering some connectors to some cables which was bad enough. I've done a fair bit of soldering of pipes, sometimes it's been pretty good and other times I just can't seem to get a tidy solder joint. Not a fan of soldering. Maybe I should practise some more.
Ah, that's OK then. The truck with pin headers is to not overheat them and melt the plastic, causing the pin to slip out.
I used to think I was awful at soldering, but turns out I had a really shit iron. I'm not great by any means, but I can get reliable results now.
Think I'm going to get a hotplate for doing surface mounted stuff next.
I don't think I have the best soldering iron. It's my dad's old one and not in the best condition. When I first tried soldering I had no idea what I was doing. I think I was soldering a 3.5mm jack to a Nokia cable. I was hearing up the solder and dropping it onto the cable which, unsurprisingly, didn't work too well.
You don't need to spend lots for something half decent. I use a maplin variable power unit with ceramic (?) bits. As long as you keep the bits well tinned and looked after you can get half decent results.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/50-w-solder-station-n78ar
Yeah, the pins are now at different heights!
If you've got some breadboard mount them in that first to clamp them in place. Probably all sorts of reasons you shouldn't do that, but it works for me!
That didn't work because I think the holes in the breadboard are deeper than length of the pins.
I might consider getting something like that actually. The one I have doesn't have a particularly small tip, wouldn't be any good for electronics.
A lot of the quadcopter stuff I was looking at needed soldering so I would probably need to do some at some point. I'll practise on something I don't mind breaking first though.
So how does that work? It just heats up the whole board and melts the solder? Can you stick it on your hob or in the oven?
Probably best finding something well reviewed online - seems that maplin one has some quality issues in the newer versions.
Yeah, noticed that it didn't have the best reviews. Some on Amazon with good reviews and solder suckers for slightly more. Just looked and the one I have is only 25W.
You can if your other half will let you. Need a nice flat bit of steel to put on the hob though to ensure even heating of your board (hobs normally have ridges)
I've not tried it myself, but looks interesting - you apply solder paste to the board and line up your components as best you can and then let heat and surface tension do the rest :-D
Sounds like fun. I don't think I could do it on my gas hob without a plate to sit it on :) I think I could have some fun with this stuff if I had any idea what I was doing. Really want an Arduino but no idea what I would do with it.