SMD soldering – At first, I tinned all the circuit board pads for the SMD chips before trying to mount them. That was a mistake. With both pads for chip tinned, heating up one end of the chip caused ...

For most of us, soldering electronics means soldering on “through hole components,” that are large and easy to handle. However, when machines build components, they use “surface mount components,” ...

When you are troubleshooting, it is sometimes useful to disconnect a part of your circuit to see what happens. If your new PCB isn’t perfect, you might also need to add some extra wires or components ...

It’s been a while since we’ve had a fresh How-To on the Hack-A-Day, and frankly we’ve missed them. To get things rolling, [Eliot] and I wanted to build a good knowledge base to help you hack your own ...

Soldering is the process of using a metal alloy with a low melting temperature (solder) to fuse the electrical contacts of a component to the pads of a circuit board. Proper soldering maximizes the ...