Makin’ stuff and breakin’ stuff – Page 3

A buck-fifty soldering iron tip-cleaning sponge versus one that cost thirty cents

October 4, 2017

The two sponges, side by side: cheap third-party sponge on the left and official Hakko-supplied sponge on the right. I’m still using the same cellulose tip-cleaning sponge included as an accessory with my Hakko FX-888D but I’ve been soldering more frequently in recent months and anticipate doing even more in the near future. When is […]

My soldering skillz still leave much to be desired

February 2, 2017

Mucking About With Things Personal Firsts Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter

A new (minor) personal first: connecting and driving a display, from Arduino. Thanks to Adafruit for the tutorial (Monochrome OLED Breakouts) and open-source libraries I’m using to drive this little 128×64 OLED display. Note: I am a repeat Adafruit customer but purchased these particular displays from a Taobao merchant for a fraction of the Adafruit […]

Kester flux pens are fluxing fantastic!

December 13, 2016

Personal Firsts Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter

Late last month, after needing to re-do a substandard bit of my own soldering work and finding it quite a challenge to get the solder to melt and flow, I did a of reading and concluded that I ought to try another solder alloy from a different manufacturer and that de-soldering might be a heck […]

Photos: WS2812 LED ring, soldering, desoldering

November 29, 2016

Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter

Last week, I wanted to test-drive one of the 24-LED WS2812 5050 RGB LED rings I’d bought a ways back. Getting it working, controlled by an Arduino board running the Adafruit NeoPixel library, was easy peasy. Except for the soldering step. For reasons that weren’t apparent to me while I was wielding my soldering iron, […]

First-ever soldering experience! Why did I wait so long?

June 2, 2016

Mucking About With Things Personal Firsts Sodding soldering