Comment Re:Art? (Score 1) 132
Milling is like 3D printing in metal.
No, it is not. Milling is a subtractive process, and 3D printing is an additive process. Plastics can be milled, too.
Milling is like 3D printing in metal.
No, it is not. Milling is a subtractive process, and 3D printing is an additive process. Plastics can be milled, too.
Imagine if Woz would have had an early job offer at say HP.
There's no need to imagine that. He quit his job at HP in order to launch Apple Computer with Jobs.
Is it just me, or does anybody have the feeling that this job is probably the opposite of the title?
It's not just you. In my opinion, when a government agency appoints an "{issue} Czar", that's a sign that they intend to do nothing meaningful about {issue}. When an entire organization's charter is to misbehave badly, appointing one person to advise on the issue is a pointless gesture meant to distract people from the problem. The problem of tens of thousands of people working in concert to eavesdrop on the communications of innocent people will not be affected in the slightest by one lone figurehead adviser. Massive problems require sweeping changes, not token gestures. But the powers that be do not want to correct the problem. To them, everything is working just the way they want it to.
Doing hand rework on that kind of stuff the hardest thing for me was dealing with smt chip caps, little bastards will crack if you heat em to fast, so you have to get a temp regulated hot plate, heat em up slow, then pick and place em quick with tweezers/needlenose & solder em down quick.
Maybe your iron doesn't have good enough thermal control, and/or is at too high a temperature? I used to swear by Weller irons, until I was coerced into trying a Metcal. I was amazed at what a difference a really good iron makes. I routinely hand-solder down to 0402 size components without any problems at all. I often have to rework 0201 sized ones, and those are harder. But with a good iron, appropriate use of flux, good minimum-size tips that you don't use for anything larger than 0201, treat carefully, and definitely don't let anybody else borrow, it's not that bad. When I need to tune up an RF path at work, I'll end up changing the same few 0402 or 0201 passives a dozen times or more, without ever cracking a component or lifting a pad.
Oh, and one other thing: If the board was built with lead-free solder, wick that crap off and do your rework with proper 63/37 tin/lead solder! It'll make better joints, and it melts at a lower temperature.
trying to desolder 100 pins spaced 0.01" apart then resoldering them, unless you have a 0.1 mill precision soldering robot it is impossible, you can't even buy wire thin enough to do it by hand.
Nonsense. Packages with exposed pins on the sides will typically have at least twice that pin pitch (0.5mm or larger), and they are certainly hand-solderable. Even if your wire solder is larger than the pin. In rework, this kind of stuff is done by humans, not by robots.
You will want a binocular microscope, available from eBay. And a GOOD soldering iron with good tips, such as a Metcal; also available from eBay, though you'll hunt a while to find one cheap. And some liquid flux to control surface tension and heat transfer. If the pins are not exposed, such as on a BGA, then you'll need a $100 hot air station. I've done this sort of stuff myself, and I don't have nearly as much skill as a good rework technician. At work, I even routinely perform rework involving soldering wires to individual 0.5mm pitch IC or connector pins. It's tricky with 30 gauge wire, since the wire is about as wide as the pin... so that's why we bought a spool of 38 gauge wire, which makes it pretty easy to do.
This sort of stuff takes a bit more practice than through-hole soldering, and it requires different equipment and techniques. But I could do it at home if I had to, where I've set up my bench with a pair of used Metcal irons and a binocular scope. I don't have a hot air station at home yet, but that's a $100 problem to solve when I need to do it.
YOU YOUNG HOOLIGANS, WITH YOUR JUNGLE MUSIC!
(Yes, Mr. Filter, I know that using too many caps is like yelling.)
My parents were married at 18. I was born 7 months after the marriage.
bloody irresponsable I call it.
My relatives always said that the second and later kids take 9 months, but the first one can pop out any old time.
It's later than you think, the joint Russian-American space mission has already begun.