Should I dare or Not?

Thread Starter

Shafty

Joined Apr 25, 2023
350
Computing on a laptop and doing soldering while you and everything else are on the floor is very bad body posture. You may be young now while your body can take a lot of abuse. But you will suffer for this later on in life.

At the very least, get a carton and use that as a table top.
Get two cartons or wooden crates of the same height and place a plank on top. Space the boxes so that you can sit on the floor with you legs under the board.
Will follow and thanks for that... First project that's too enthu... Hope you understand.
 
Will follow and thanks for that... First project that's too enthu... Hope you understand.
When I was like 18 or so, I got this computer as a kit:

1783204074758.png

that was the upper board, this was the lower board:

1783204122006.png

Every IC socket was soldered in place by me (approx 400 Individual soldered IC socket pins in total), every component was soldered in place by me, the ribbon cable connecting the two boards was soldered in place by me.

The LED display was soldered to its ribbon cable by me. It was a LOT of soldering (I think I did it over two days) and every single soldered joint had to be good.

I must have soldered approx 500 individual joints.

It came to life first time I powered it on.

I promise you, if I had tried to do that on a floor it would never work, it would be a frustrating mess and I'd have thrown it away.

The Acorn Microcomputer
 
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Thread Starter

Shafty

Joined Apr 25, 2023
350
I know its silly. What is the exact type of table should I look for? A computer table is enough or is there any specific name to it? Prime day for 4 days in Amazon india started. Let's order one.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,954
I know its silly. What is the exact type of table should I look for? A computer table is enough or is there any specific name to it? Prime day for 4 days in Amazon india started. Let's order one.
That mostly depends on how much you want to (and can afford to) spend on it. It also depends on what is available in the local area. A large desk works pretty good and you can often find them for free or at very low cost from businesses that are going out of business or are upgrading their own furniture. Another common source is universities at the end of the term when students have to vacate residence halls -- they often just want stuff to disappear so that they don't have to deal with moving it.

My workbench has been a standard folding table for decades. In college I built a workbench and it served me pretty well, but a simple table turns out to be far more versatile than most actual "work benches" precisely because they are so simple. I have complete flexibility to arrange the stuff on them as I like, which changes over time or with a particular project.
 
Boy you're going to hate me for this but it's also an important part of setting up a work station. ESD. That stands for Electro Static Discharge (or Damage). ESD can ruin your project quicker than you can say "Ouch". The kind of work station you should build should NOT be made of plastic or cardboard for the surface. Wood isn't ideal but it's not terrible.

There's a whole lot to the subject of ESD control and you don't need to get burdened down with that just now. For now, like others are saying - get in the game. Solder something. If you have a bunch of resistors try copying what you see on other boards and thread the resistor leads through the holes in the board with the same bends and then solder them. If you're using a single sided board (copper on one side only) then make sure the copper side is away from the components. Add little bits of solder at a time until you get a nice shiny solder joint. Years ago we'd have strived for joints that look like Hershey Kisses. That's a good place to start. But honestly, joints that are shiny and well adhered to the pad and the lead don't need to have that HK shape. As long as the hole is filled with solder (assuming a two sided board with holes that have copper plated inside them. YOUR task is to make good looking solder joints. Make several. Dozens. Maybe even a hundred. Take pictures and post them. We'll tell you what you did right and where you can improve.
 
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