I got off my bum today and decided since I had some free time, I would start to assemble my Speeduino board.
Step one was to set up my work space. Technically it’s my better halfs desk, but uh, she wasn’t using it.
I got some sweet new toys for this project. A Yihua soldering station (more on that later), an anti-static mat (which is more to protect the table than anything) and the totally badass PCB holder. Seriously, the PCB holder is amazing. I don’t even know how you would work on a PCB without one; I guess you could just chuck the board face down on the table and make a mess of it.
The Speeduino board is a lovely little beast, with all its printing and its bright red PCB.
SPEEDUINO.
I started with the most common component, the 1K resistor of which there were 13 on the board. Here’s the first one.
And some more.
And that’s about as far as I got before getting really pissed off. The awesome Yihua soldering station I got online is a POS. I was trying to solder with it, wondering why the tip kept losing heat and the solder started to harden and stick to it. Turns out, despite having a dial that goes from 200 deg c to 480 deg c, the damn thing actually only measures 50 deg c to 100 deg c at the tip. Useless, when I need about 300 deg c.
I have contacted the seller, but being that they are based in Aus I don’t know what luck I will have. Probably just buy a proper digital one from Jaycar over the weekend and redo all my soldering.
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