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(S'up nerds!)

Last time I attempted to remove this connector from the board with a soldering iron and solder wick I ripped the pads off which was pretty depressing...

This time, I used a hot air tool with liquid gel flux in a syringe and it seriously made desoldering this connector a breeze. Cleaned up very nicely with isopropyl alcohol and then removed old solder, cleaned up, new flux and new solder, and then I soldered on a wire harness for this GPS board stolen from the homebrew FPV industry. Cut the I2C as I'm using UART to the LilyGo T-Deck. Also put a little hot glue and magical NASA Kaptan (sp?) tape to keep the wires secure to the pads.

#meshtastic #LoRa

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Discussion

bitpunk.fm is typing 1y ago

Pretty soon you won't even bother with connectors :) I just solder straight wires.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Yeah fair enough, I was just sort of excited to be able to reuse the wiring harness and plug it in but I still have to attempt to smash this spaghetti into a case that my friend with a 3d printer designed so we may have to lose the connector if it gets tight. What a time to be alive!

bitpunk.fm is typing 1y ago

Yeah looks fine though. Kapton tape works well.

Hot air and flux are my goto like you discovered. I will only use a soldering iron when I really have to get something small and targeted off, like one capacitor or so.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Yeah so true 100% agreed. I feel like I've been living in the dark ages for so many years until tonight.

bitpunk.fm is typing 1y ago

Well best of luck! I was thinking for the holiday issue of somehow including a small soldering kit actually. Like a fm radio kit.

Maybe I'll look into that more.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Definitely!! What about a crystal radio? Or is that lame? I am shaming myself but I've never built one.

Over at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Wizards (Soldersmoke Podcast) there is a regenerative receiver kit project from a few years back the hosts have talked about sometimes that I think would be a fun build. Kind of complicated though maybe.

Still, I recognize it is not called the bitpunk[ . ]am podcast so perhaps frequency modulation radio kits are the one true path. I'm down either way. If you want to research and plan a build would be happy to help. Not sure if you already have something in mind.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Went back and looked up a bunch of FM, AM,and then combo kits. So much out there I guess the question could be what is the point, meaning, soldering lesson, building something around minimal analogue components, quick build, high quality-ish (with cheap parts) build, or maybe some other goal? What are your thoughts?

bitpunk.fm is typing 1y ago

I think it would be fun! The kits I ordered (not yet received) are a FM transmitter with no crystal. So its kinda mind blown how it works with a single transistor.

It both demystifies and adds more layers to radio I think.

But mainly the fun. On the tape, I would walk through the soldering steps so it would be a solder-a-long.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Awesome (hopefully) sub-$10/kits...surely all things now reside inside of a Si5153 maybe thats too dark. Regardless will be fun as hell

bitpunk.fm is typing 1y ago

I think the kits cost me sub $2 :). There's no IC on this transmitter even!

The most complex component is a NPN transistor :)

You'll like it. I can't wait until they come in.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Sounds perfect! Can't wait to hear more about it.

GHOSTn2H 1y ago

Cyberpunks solder

Bill Cypher 1y ago

I too have ripped the pads off a circuit board because I didn't know to desolder with a hot air gun. It is a real bummer.

Circuit frames are expensive on a gamble that you might be able to fix it. Especially since you are the idiot who just ripped the pads off because you aren't that great at soldering.

Yet another robot 1y ago

Sir: i offer you a belated 'three cheers' for the right tool for the job