You are reading a single comment by @DrAzzy and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
@DrAzzy
That soldering iron has seen better days, but it's flaws are only cosmetic - it's a really nice soldering iron. Weller, one of those ones in the ancient off-blue-green housing. Actually, I think it's had that tape on it since before my father got it - that doesn't look like his style of repair.
Board was fabbed at home using toner transfer method.
http://drazzy.com/e/boards/index.shtml
There are many other sites that describe the process in more detail - that page more sums up which choices I make, and repeats the important bits.
It was reflowed (not entirely successfully - I had to touch up a lot of joints by hand, because the paste hadn't melted) in a converted toasteroven using the ControLeo2 controller (and associated build kit). Said reflow oven perfectly reflowed two boards last night though, so I'm still not sure what's going on.
The crossbraces were meant to hold them in position during reflow. Luckily, this turned out to be unnecessary, particularly since the crossbrace headers melted. You certainly need them to position it correctly, so they're parallel and stuff. That's surface mount header, so it can be soldered down cocked if you're not careful.
Metal sheet is nothing special, just what I carried it up from the reflow oven on, since it was still a bit warm, and i was impatient to start soldering all those joints the reflow oven missed. STILL better than hand soldering!
I coated the traces with clear nailpolish (yeah yeah). I usually tin-plate my boards, but mine has stopped giving a decent coat (ie, it's used up), and I don't want to crack open the next batch until I have to, and I didn't feel it was necessary here. If it was going to be sit around and be soldered to in the future, i'd tin it, but since this will just be soldered once, and then sit there, i didn't bother.
The labels were made by saving and hacking up the board reference page to display them in different rows, then printed on sticky-back paper, stuck on, and then painted over with two layers of clear nailpolish to protect from spills, stray solder blobs, etc.