What I accomplished this week
- Finished moving into the new office
- Ordered the rest of the equipment and tools needed to complete my research
- Populated the PCB with all the surface mount components. The process is as follows
- Apply solder paste to component pads
- Using tweezers, place components onto pads
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- Place PCB in oven and wait a few minutes until you see the components ‘pop’ into place
- Remove PCB and inspect joints. Use solder wick to remove solder if there is excess amounts and/or solder bridges
- Clean PCB of remaining flux using toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol
Problems
- Accidentally snapped a pin off the slide switch which rendered it as useless so I had to purchase more
Next week’s work
- Solder the slide switch, push buttons and headers to PCB
- Test PCB for functionality (Any fried components or smoke coming from PCB?)
- Conduct electrical measurements using multimeter
Below is an image of the board for prototype 1.2
